Appel de conférences pour le colloque « The Politics of Opera. Handel’s Opera Academies 1719–1737 », Halle (Saale), 30-31 mai 2023.

« The Handel Festival in Halle an der Saale in 2023 will be on the theme “The Opera: Dispute over Tweedledum and Tweedledee”. The quotation from an epigram by John Byrom in The London Journal of 5 June 1725, refers to the competition between the opera composers Giovanni Bononcini and George Frideric Handel. The subject is intended to accentuate the fact that opera has always been the topic of discussions in which cultural-political and artistic interests have been intertwined.

This is certainly true for the two opera academies of which, and in which, Handel was in charge of between 1719 and 1734, and which were followed by the competition between the “Opera of the Nobility” and Handel’s work at the Covent Garden Theatre until 1737. These disputes happened at almost all levels of opera production, and links to comprehensive political-cultural and social negotiation processes become evident: this applies to the organization, patronage and financing of the academies. Such differences applied also to the audience, the public review, the choice of repertoire and libretti, the singers, the scenarios and stage designs, and the compositions themselves. »

Date limite de soumission : 15 novembre 2022.

Pour plus d’informations : cliquez ici.