Project Details
Projekt
Materiality and Aesthetic Transformation. The Festa teatrale L'Huomo at the Margravial Opera House Bayreuth
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Kordula Knaus
Subject Area
Musicology
Term
from 2020 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448125578
The aim of the project is to gain insights into the aesthetic strategies of Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth through a visually supported historically informed performance of the Festa teatrale L'Huomo at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth. These insights should then be accessible and tangible for the public by transferring them to the Opera House Museum that is currently built next to the Opera House.The project is based on findings from the DFG project "Opera buffa as a European Phenomenon", which, among other things, focused on transformation processes in operatic culture around the middle of the 18th century. During this period, Wilhelmine von Bayreuth established an aesthetically remarkable music and opera culture at her court. Its materiality is still tangible today, particularly through the Margravial Opera House built in 1748 and restored in recent years. A highlight of Wilhelmine’s artistic activities was the performance of the Festa teatrale L'Huomo in 1754 (libretto: Wilhelmine von Bayreuth / music: Andrea Bernasconi). This work—for which neither a critical edition nor a recording is yet available—is the subject of the transfer project. In order to achieve the project goals, four project parts were defined. They will be carried out together with three application partners: the Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, Gardens and Lakes as the supporting institution of the Margravial Opera House (AP1), the concert organizer Musica Bayreuth (AP2) and BR-Klassik Studio Franken (AP3). In project part 1, historical materials and objects that will be used both for a historically informed visual performance concept and for the presentation in the museum are evaluated together with AP1. In project part 2 a historical-critical and—in cooperation with AP2—practical edition of L'Huomo is produced. In project part 3, a historically informed visual concept for a performance in the Margravial Opera House is developed and tested together with AP1 and AP2. Historical artefacts and theatre construction are put into correlation to current performance practices. Project part 4 includes the realization, recording and analysis of the performance. All application partners are involved in this. The audio-visual results of the performance are then transferred to the museum in cooperation with AP1 and AP3. Finally, the practical knowledge about the aesthetic strategies of staging gained in the performance analysis are imbedded into the broader academic context. The documentation will be published together with the edited score and thus have an impact on further research.
DFG Programme
Research Grants (Transfer Project)
