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SoSe 23: Music Theatre Collections. Introduction to Theatre Historiography

João Cardante Romão

Kommentar

In the most basic sense, historical collections serve a double function: 1) they aim at representing a person’s biographical trajectory, the life of an institution, a specific music or theatre genre, etc.; 2) and are representative of a situated knowledge that shapes the conditions under which that same collection was formed. In other words, how collections are organized, what objects and documents are selected to integrate it, as well as which institutions become responsible for holding and preserving historical collections tell us not only about the politics and economies of a given time and place, but also about the historiographical methods and theories that informed the formation of those collections.

Our specific focus on music theatre collections in this course will serve as an entry point to explore the conditions under which historical knowledge on performance practice is generated, curated, and preserved. As any other performative art, music theatre poses particular challenges to historiography. The inherent ephemeral character of music theatre reflects the perhaps idealized notion that theatre (whether musical or not) only happens when the red velvet curtain is raised (literally or metaphorically). But how would a historical collection of music theatre look and sound like? From a materialistic perspective of historiographical work, which objects, discourses, and practices would be representative of the genre? Which ones would be disregarded? What can we gain by thinking with and beyond the existing examples of music theatre collections?

To get first-hand knowledge on the historiographical work related to historical collections, in the context of this course, you will visit archives and collections in Berlin and talk with archivists and curators who have been responsible for organizing and maintaining collections that are more or less related to music theatre. While being introduced to the most recent theories and methodologies of historiography, you will have hands-on assignments in class such as the curation of an online exhibition on Paul Dessau’s Einstein (1974), a music theatre piece composed to a libretto by Karl Mickel and staged by Ruth Berghaus at the Staatsoper in Berlin.

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