Gastvortrag von Prof. Dr. Gundula Kreuzer (Yale University) »Flat Bayreuth: On the Genealogy of Opera as Screened«

Das ITM lädt ein zum Gastvortrag von Prof. Dr. Gundula Kreuzer (Yale University, New Haven, USA): „Flat Bayreuth: On the Genealogy of Opera as Screened“ am Dienstag, den 11. Dezember 2018, 14 Uhr c.t., im Kleinen Hörsaal, Bismarckstr. 1a, Erlangen (in englischer Sprache).

Over the last decade, the “Met live in HD” broadcasts have stoked fears that cinematic remediations of opera might expedite the demise of live performances, while film scholars have begun to worry about the future of the cinema itself. Starting with this irony, my talk will challenge the frequent opposition of opera and screen by exploring a possible genealogy of the screen within opera. Digital projections have become ubiquitous in contemporary operatic production. More fundamentally, I will suggest that the nineteenth-century ideal of illusionist staging hinged upon an ultimately two-dimensional concept of optical realism, with even the architectonic innovations of Wagner’s Festspielhaus contributing to a flattening of the performative surface. From this perspective, the recent upswing of site-specific or participatory performances by indie opera companies appears to counter the screening of opera both on proscenium stages and in cinemas.

Gundula Kreuzer is Associate Professor of Music at Yale University. In both her writing and her teaching, Kreuzer approaches music from a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives, such as social, cultural, and political history as well as theories of technology and multimedia. In spring 2018, her monograph Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of 19th-Century Opera was published by the University of California Press. Merging theoretical and historical approaches to opera’s multimedia nature, the book examines how composers since the late 18th century increasingly tried to control certain aspects of staging by embracing specific stage technologies. She also gained experience as a freelance radio presenter in Germany and has recently contributed to broadcasts on WNYC and the BBC.

Der Vortrag wird ermöglicht durch Fördermittel des Büros für Gender und Diversity und der Frauenbeauftragten der Philosophischen Fakultät und Fachbereich Theologie.