University of Oslo Faculty of Humanities/Department of Musicology

Opera Through the Stage Door

Autumn Semester 2017 MUS2525/4525

Convenors: Dr Nanette Nielsen & Dr Peter Edwards (from November 2017) Lecturers: Prof. David Levin, Dr Nanette Nielsen, Dr Hedda Høgåsen-Hallesby, Eystein Sandvik

Course content Developed in close collaboration with the Norwegian National Opera, this course seeks to introduce students to the practices and possibilities of stage interpretation in opera. Students will be invited into the opera house in order to gain a critical understanding of how meaning is created in the rehearsal room. Having actively observed the work of interpretation in the course of rehearsals in the opera house, students will in turn be asked to formulate their own conceptual approaches to a given work. No prior experience in opera direction is expected, but a keen interest in the nature of artistic interpretation and a willingness to think expansively, creatively, and rigorously about how meaning-making transpires in artistic practice is required.

We will discuss a broad range of materials, encompassing musicological works that offer insight into the specific opera being staged, to more theoretical work (encompassing theatre practice, social theory, textual theory, and/or media theory) on theatrical interpretation and performance practice.

By investigating some of the historical, technological, and aesthetic discourses surrounding opera and opera production, this course aims to clarify some of the ways in which opera functions as a living art form, shaped by and shaping contemporary sensibilities, informed by and in turn informing the way we understand and experience the world.

Learning outcomes By the end of the course, the student will: • have gained familiarity with the form and experience of opera as an historical, theoretical, and process-based art form • have gained familiarity with the elements of opera production and how they are being deployed at Operaen • have developed increased awareness of historical, commercial, and social factors in the opera industry • have gained skills in aural and visual perception, critical assessment, and reasoning, and applied these skills to written work • be able to prepare an analysis of an opera production as a basis for discussion of operatic elements such as dramaturgy and musical meaning-making

University of Oslo Faculty of Humanities/Department of Musicology

LECTURE AND SEMINAR CALENDAR

Week Date Session info and readings/viewings • Attendance is obligatory • All lectures take place in ZEB/Salen • The seminars for ‘Opera Week’ are held at Operaen 38 19/9 Professor David Levin (Chicago/IMV) ‘Introduction’

Recommended viewings of : Staatsoper Berlin; cond: ; production: Patrice Chéreau. W. Meier; Clark, Wottrich, Grundheber, von Kannen; Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin; EuroArts 2066758, 97 mins., subtitled

Gran Teatre del ; cond. Sebastian Weigle; production: Calixto Bieito. (Wozzeck), Franz Hawlata; (Marie) Angela Denoke; (Drum Major) Reiner Goldberg; (Margret) Vivian Tierney; (Doctor) Johann Tilli; (Captain) Hubert Delamboye; Vivaldi Chorus; IPSI; Petits Cantors de Catalunya; Orchestra & Chorus of the Label: Opus Arte

Bolshoi, cond. ; production: Dmitri Tcherniakov. Georg Nigl (Wozzeck), Mardi Byers (Marie), Maxim Paster (Captain), Pyotr Migunov (Doctor); Roman Muravitsky (Drum-major), Orchestra & Chorus of the Bolshoi. Label: BelAir Classiques

Opernhaus Zürich, cond. ; production: Andreas Homoki, with Christian Gerhaber (Wozzeck), Gun-Brit Barkmin (Marie), Brandon Jovanovich (Drum Major), Mauro Peter (Andris), Franck Evin, Juerg Haemmerli, Meta Bronski, Philharonia Zuerich, set & costumes: Michael Levine; Studio: Accentus; DVD Release Date: September 30, 2016. 41 10/10 Dr Nanette Nielsen (IMV) ‘From Love to Death: the Ethics of Voice in Wozzeck’

Required reading: Nielsen, ‘Voice’, in Cobussen & Nielsen, Music and Ethics (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 117-153.

Suggested further reading: Douglas Jarman (1989), : Wozzeck (Cambridge Opera Handbooks), Chapters 1-5.

Viewings of Wozzeck: Staatsoper Berlin; cond: Daniel Barenboim; production: Patrice Chéreau. Gran Teatre del Liceu; cond. Sebastian Weigle; production: Calixto Bieito.

43 24/10 Dr Hedda Høgåsen-Hallesby (DNO&B)

Required reading: University of Oslo Faculty of Humanities/Department of Musicology

Mary Ann Smart ‘The Silencing of Lucia’, Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jul., 1992), 119-141.

Sara Mills, ‘Questioning the subject: madness and sanity’, in idem, Michel Foucault (Routledge Critical Thinkers, 2003), 97-109.

Suggested further reading: Ellen Rosand, ‘Operatic Madness: A Challenge to Convention’, in Music and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Cambridge, 1992), 241–87.

Linda & Michael Hutcheon, ‘Staging Suicide’ in Opera: The Art of Dying (Harvard University Press, 2009), 123–146.

Slavoj Žižek 'Staging Feminine Hysteria: Schoenberg’s ’, Žižek and Media Studies, ed. Matthew Flisfeder, Louis-Paul Willis (Springer, 2014) pp 257-275.

45 7/11 Eystein Sandvik (NRK)

Required reading: Alban Berg: "A Word about Wozzeck" and "A Lecture on Wozzeck", in Jarman (ed), pp. 152-170.

Joseph Kerman: Opera as Drama. New and Revised Edition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 180-190.

Suggested further reading: Laurel E. Zeiss: "The Dramaturgi of Opera", in: Nicholas Till (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012), pp. 179-201.

46 13-17/11 ‘Opera Week’ The seminars at Operaen will take place Monday 13 November – Friday 17 November.

Draft schedule: Monday 13 Nov Location: Education Center / Main Stage 15.00-21.00

Tuesday 14 Nov Location: Hospitality Room 34 / Orchestra Rehearsal Room 10.00-15.30

Wednesday 15 Nov Location: Hospitality Room 34 / Main Stage 10.00-15.30

Thursday 16 Nov Location: Hospitality Room Flagstad / Main Stage University of Oslo Faculty of Humanities/Department of Musicology

15.00-21.00

Friday 17 Nov Location: Education Center / Main Stage 10.00-16.00

Material supporting the course, including prezis and assigned readings, is available on Fronter.