TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES in the LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Practices, Performers, Peripheries
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9 DocMus Research Publications TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Practices, Performers, Peripheries Edited by Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager 9 DocMus Research Publications ULLA-BRITTA BROMAN-KANANEN is a university HANNELE KETOMÄKI received her Doctor of Music degree researcher at the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts from the Sibelius Academy in 2012. Her study examines Helsinki). In 2010–2013 she worked on the project “The Oskar Merikanto's national ideals and his activities in the Finnish Opera Company (1873–1879) from a Microhistorical music festivals by the Finnish Kansanvalistusseura. She Perspective: Performance Practices, Multiple Narrations is the manager of Academic Development at the Sibelius and Polyphony of Voice”, and later in “Opera on the Move: Academy (University of the Arts Helsinki). Transnational Practices and Touring Artists in the Long 19th Century Norden”. HILARY PORISS is Associate Dean of Academic and Faculty Affairs, and Associate Professor of Music in the College of GÖRAN GADEMAN has been since 2006 the dramaturgist Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University. Her and casting coordinator and since 2007 associate professor research interests include the 19th-century Italian and French at the Gothenburg Opera. In his doctoral thesis he studied re- opera performance culture and aesthetics. She has authored alism and opera (Realismen på Operan, Stockholm University, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority 1996). His book Operabögar (Gay Opera Lovers) appeared in of Performance (2009) and co-edited Fashions and Legacies 2004. He also contributed to the New Swedish Theatre History of Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2010) and The Arts of (2007). In 2015 Gademan released an international opera the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century (2012). She history, Operahistoria (in Swedish). publishes in 19th-Century Music, Cambridge Opera Journal, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Verdi Forum, Journal of British Studies, Music & Letters. ELLEN KAROLINE GJERVAN is an associate professor at Queen Maud University College in Trondheim. She received her PhD in Theatre Studies at the University of Bergen in CLAIR ROWDEN is Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of 2010. The chapter in this collection was written as a part School in the School of Music, Cardiff University. Her book of the research project “Performing arts between dilettan- Republican Morality and Catholic Tradition at the Opera: tism and professionalism: Music, theatre and dance in the Massenet’s Hérodiade and Thaïs appeared in 2004 and the Norwegian public sphere 1770–1850” (www.ntnu.no/parts/). edited volume Performing Salome, Revealing Stories in 2013. She has published also on Henrik Ibsen’s theatrical career, on She has published on opera and nineteenth-century France dramaturgy, and on political theatre and the stagecraft of the in La Revue de musicologie, Cambridge Opera Journal, Music long eighteenth century. in Art, and Franco-British Studies, and regularly contributes to the Cahiers de l’Esplanade and writes programme notes for Covent Garden, Wexford Festival Opera and the Salz- JENS HESSELAGER is Associate Professor at Section of burg Festival. She has co-edited Musical Theatre in Europe, Musicology, University of Copenhagen. His research focusses 1830–1945 (2017). primarily on questions pertaining to music theatre and theatre music in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including dialogue opera, grand opera, vaudeville, RANDI M. SELVIK is professor emerita of musicology of the melodrama and incidental music. Within this field, a special Department of Music, the Norwegian University of Science interest attaches to transnational aspects: mobility (transla- and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. She administrated tion, transformation, reconfiguration) of repertoires, genres, the research project “Performing arts between dilettantism practices and values; inter-urban migration of musicians and and professionalism: Music, theatre and dance in the Norwe- singers; relations between cultural centres and peripheries. gian public sphere 1770–1850” (2012–2016). Her publications deal with musical life in Bergen in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She is co-editor of the anthology Liden- ANNE KAUPPALA is a professor of Music Performance skap og levebrød: Utøvende kunst i endring rundt 1800 (2015) Research at the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts and has co-written Solkongens opera: Den franske tragédie en Helsinki). Her research interests are opera and musical semi- musique 1673–86 (2015) and contributed to Harmonien i fire otics. She has directed two research projects on opera: “The satser: Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester 1765–2015 (2015). Finnish Opera Company (1873–1879) from a Microhistorical Perspective: Performance Practices, Multiple Narrations and Polyphony of Voice” (2010–2013) and “Opera on the Move: GÖRAN TEGNÉR studied art history and archaeology at Transnational Practices and Touring Artists in the Long 19th Stockholm University. He was a curator at the Museum of Century Norden” (2013–2017). She has co-edited with Owe National Antiquities in Stockholm for 35 years, his principal Ander, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager field being medieval art. He was a member of the Schola Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th Gregoriana Holmiae (1986–1992) and the Lidingö Chamber Century (2012). Choir (2001–2011). Since his retirement in 2005, Tegnér has devoted himself to the music culture of the early 19th century, with a focus on Sweden. Tracing Operatic Performances in the Long Nineteenth Century: Practices, Performers, Peripheries 9 DocMus Research Publications TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Practices, Performers, Peripheries Edited by Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY: PRACTICES, PERFORMERS, PERIPHERIES On the cover: Hugo Rahm’s watercolor (20.5 x 25cm) from 1892 showing a scene from Lohengrin as well as the audience and orchestra in Gustav III’s Opera House (Stockholm), demolished in 1892. Scenkonstmuseet (Swedish Museum of Performing Arts), K1396. Graphic design BOND Creative Agency Layout Paul Forsell Cover Jan Rosström Printed by Unigrafia, Helsinki, 2017 ISBN 978-952-329-089-1 (bound) ISBN 978-952-329-090-7 (PDF) ISSN 2341-8257 http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-329-090-7 DocMus Research Publications 9 © The authors and the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts Helsinki) 5 Table of Contents 7 Introduction Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager I ON STAGE 15 Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Hilary Poriss 43 Parodying opera in Paris: Tannhäuser on the popular stage, 1861 Clair Rowden 83 Tracing Lohengrin at the Royal Opera of Sweden, 1874 Göran Gademan 113 The first Swedish performance of a Verdi opera and the Italian Opera Company in Stockholm, 1848–1849 Göran Tegnér II STAGE AND NATION 169 Grand opera and Finnish nationalism in Helsinki, 1876–1877 Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen 215 Høstgildet by J. P. A. Schulz: A national Singspiel? Randi M. Selvik 249 Staging state patriotism: Høstgildet of 1790 Ellen Karoline Gjervan 269 The premiere of Pohjan neiti at the Vyborg Song Festival, 1908 Hannele Ketomäki 289 Abstracts 6 7 Introduction ANNE KAUPPALA, ULLA-BRITTA BROMAN-KANANEN AND JENS HESSELAGER Opera history as well as history in general faces major challenges to- day. The certainty that the “truth” of history (a buried reality) is hidden in the sources, dependent only upon the historian’s ability to evaluate critically their origin and worth, has turned into a profound insecurity about the possibility of attaining truth at all. Certainty has dissolved into discourses, fragmentary narratives and postmodern construc- tions.1 The critical edge points to all kinds of grand narratives about the Nation, Great Men, European civilisation or even eternal progress in the name of Enlightenment with the result that the historiographer’s task has changed into deconstructing grand narratives and uncovering a tendentious plot behind them. The shift away from a traditional view of history as an objective and neutral science rests on insight into the nature of language: rather than being an innocent mirror of reality, language is the very creator of this reality. This and other realisations have had profound effects on the understanding of history as a science. Basic questions about whether there even is a past somewhere, ready for the historian to “find” and articulate, are being raised.2 Where the history of opera is concerned, the question of performance itself is being posed in new ways, with the potential of questioning anew what practices, performers and places should be considered worthy of the historian’s attention. The paradigmatic turns have thus contributed to discussions about the historian’s awareness of chosen perspectives and approaches as well as the kind of narrative he or she is producing. However, since the 1 See, for instance, Evans 2008. 2 Winberg 2010, 330–348; White 1973; de Certeau 1984; Ricoeur 2004; see also Pikkanen 2012. Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen 8 and Jens Hesselager first wave of critiques, alternative approaches to the writing of his- tory have been elaborated, such as micro-history,3 cultural transfer,4 performance studies, transnationalism, mobility studies5 and histoire croisée.6 Common features of these approaches are the