I just can’t resist learning new words!
Concinnity is the harmonious or purposeful reinforcement of the various parts of a work of art. Generally the higher the art, the higher the degree of concinnity.
Concinnity comes from the Latin “concintas”, meaning skillfully put together.
And they relate it to Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk
Gesamtkunstwerk (”total,” “integrated,” or “complete artwork”) is a German term attributed to the German opera composer Richard Wagner (who first used the term in his 1849 essay Art and Revolution). He used it to refer to an operatic performance encompassing music, theater, and the visual arts. Wagner felt that in ancient Greek tragedy, these had been fused, but at some point they drifted apart — he was critical of the opera of his time, especially Grand opera, which he felt emphasized bravura singing, and sensational staging, orchestral and plot effects, too heavily and did not feature quality poetic drama genuinely supported by other arts. …
Opera has been often thought to be an example of Gesamtkunstwerk in general, as it requires the that all of the major classical schools of art be utilized. This includes painting and the two-dimensional visual arts in general (set painting, e.g.); sculpture and architecture (set design); poetry and narrative (the libretto); music (the orchestration and the vocalizations); and movement (blocking, or dance).
Wagnerian opera not only combines all these things, but demands for the most part that all of them be present on the stage both concurrently and constantly for the entire duration of the performance.
This is exactly what got me so excited about doing theatre work this summer, to be in an environment where all these different arts were being applied together. In some cases, I wished that this or that element of the overall thing were better, but it also gave me a sense of what kinds of trade-offs you can get away with in such things and an elementary grasp of how these various forms complement and uplift one another.
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