1.   Material and approach

 

The objects of my investigation are the two screen versions of the world-famous rock-opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”. The first one (JCS-1973) was shot in 1973 and the second (JCS-2000) was staged in 2000. The first version of the plot, music and lyrics of the songs has undergone slight changes that I consider insignificant and I neglect them. As for the body languages that are encapsulated into the performance of the opera, they are noticeably different in these two versions.

 

The basic approach I use is the comparative analysis of the rock-opera gestures. The word gesture is understood here broadly. The class of gestures includes the so-called gestures proper, i. e. sign movements of hands, arms, head, shoulders, etc., meaningful motions of the body, sign postures, meaningful glances, facial expressions and complex, verbal-nonverbal, modes of behavior. While describing different types and tokens of the rock-opera gestures I try to answer some important questions, which can be disseminated to some other musical dramas. These questions are: (1) Do meanings and usage of JCS gestures concord with those of the words in its libretto? (2) Are there any fragments of the JCS performance when the personage is expected to perform the particular gesture? The comparative analysis allows for discovering some regularities and rules that account for the choice of the particular gesture among the other possibilities and predict its usage in the performance. In my paper I am about to illustrate the effect of some of these rules.