Handwritten layers of operatic practices
The reception of Richard Wagner at the Neue Deutsche Theater in Prague (1888–1938)
2020–2023
RFD12
This project has performed a material-related investigation and systematisation of the handwritten tradition of operatic practices. The approach was methodologically significant because historical performance practice can be reconstructed almost only by means of (handwritten) annotations. Essentially, the handwritten supplements, eliminations, and alterations represent fragmentary evidence of former practices. The project focused on the pivotal period between the establishment of music drama by Richard Wagner and the outbreak of the Second World War.
The opera archive of the renowned Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague (1888–1938) served as a model source collection, as it offered completely unexplored material in its original constitution. The project analysed the various handwritten notes within the printed performance material (conductor’s scores, piano reductions, parts, stage and light directions), and considered the sources’ quality as well as their relation to each other. On this basis, the interdependencies between handwritten marks within the performance material and the aesthetic ideals of the operatic practice have been exemplarily described, and related to the public reception of Wagner in Prague. The point hasn’t been to publish a critical edition of the works concerned, but to identify, collect, and digitise the annotations related to performance practices. The handwritten markings are displayed in their relation to the notated (resp. printed) ‘original’ layers of the works. Another aim of this project has been to compile a digital presentation of the handwritten notations, which illustrates them as substrates of an historic operatic practice. The project cooperated with the Archive of the Czech National Theatre, the Nationalarchiv der Richard-Wagner-Stiftung Bayreuth, as well as with Artefact Profiling (Research Field A) and Data Linking (Research Field F) at the Cluster.
People
Project lead: Ivana Rentsch
Research Associate: Laura-Maxine Kalbow