An exploration of Italian operatic history beyond the traditional canon, from a global perspective.
This talk seeks to answer two questions. First, how does the history of Italian opera in the nineteenth century look when placed in a global context; second, what might such a history look like if we move away from a focus on works by canonical composers (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, and a handful of others)? In their place, we can explore a world of different stories, based around ongoing frictions between Italian opera as a fantasy of refinement and melodic irresistibility and its unruly reality, co-opted in the creation of national and colonial cultures, yet just as frequently undermining them.
This pre-concert talk directly complements the Bel Canto Opera Scenes program at 2:00pm in Morrison Theater. While no tickets are required for the talk, tickets are required for the performance and can be reserved here.
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This talk is part of the Shepherd School of Music's new Music and Ideas Series, which explores the depths of musicology through a lineup of talks by distinguished experts and leading scholars in the field. Explore more here.
Artists
Benjamin Walton is Professor of Music History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. His books include Rossini in Restoration Paris: The Sound of Modern Life, The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini: Historiography, Analysis, Criticism (co-edited with Nicholas Mathew), Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination (co-edited with David Trippett), and The Cambridge History of Italian Opera Since 1800 (co-edited with Emanuele Senici). Between 2014 and 2019, he served as editor of Cambridge Opera Journal. His current research explores operatic globalization in the nineteenth century, technologies of operatic staging, and the social history of opera.
