Empirical Evidence in Production Processes in The Performing Arts

The production process of an opera can be represented in terms of numerous organizational models according to the type of opera, the approaches adopted by the process owners (performers) and the intentions of the musicians and librettists whose creativity set in motion these processes. At the same time it reveals some fundamental mechanisms which can be viewed in terms of organizational routines. Empirical analysis is the key to this mode of viewing: in this paper I intend to make a contribution to the knowledge of the organization processes of opera production based on my own experience of the entire production process in some of the foremost Ialian opera houses. In what follows I shall refer in particular to how this process was organized in the production of three operas: Verdi’s Falstaff and Rossini Cenerentola and Il viaggio a Reims. As I shall show below, the process owners in these organization processes are the conductors and producers, who in the three operas I observed were Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti and Carlo Rizzi, conductors, and Luca Ronconi and Giorgio Strehler, producers.