Opera—with its combination of poetry, literature, drama, music, art, and
dance—is the most inherently interdisciplinary of all musical genres. Cultural
Dialogues in Opera brings opera scholars together from divergent fields
by providing space to discuss their own research and to examine the writings
of other scholars, organizing talks by guest speakers who will to share their
interdisciplinary operatic research, and presenting films about or featuring
opera.
| Herbert Lindenberger |
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(English & Humanities, Stanford University)
Friday, May 19, 2006 12:30 PM
HUB 209B
 Lindenberger is a recipient of the College of Arts & Sciences 2006 Distinguished Alumnus Award. His talk is part of the Cultural Dialogues in Opera series. A specialist in English, German and French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, Herbert Lindenberger is Professor Emeritus from Stanford University. He moved to Stanford in 1969 to launch the comparative literature department, shaping what many consider to be the strongest literature faculty in the country. His colleagues have described him as an indelible figure on that campus for three decades who set the standard by which enthusiasm for teaching should be gauged. As President of the Modern Language Association, he headed the largest national professional organization for the humanities, with more than 31,000 members. Dr. Lindenberger continues to exercise his passion for opera as a tireless promoter, appearing as a featured speaker on its behalf around the world.
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| Mary Ann Smart |
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(Musicology, UC Berkeley)
Spies and Sopranos:
Italian Opera and Italian Politics at the Salon of the Princess Belgioioso
12:30pm February 28, 2006
HUB 106B
Exiled in Paris after the failed Italian political uprisings of 1830-1, a sizable group of Italy’s most progressive political thinkers gathered in two main places: the Théâtre-Italien to hear opera and the salon of the Princess Cristina Trivulzio di Belgioioso to discuss opera. Belgioioso’s salon was frequented not only by celebrities of the operatic diaspora (composers Rossini, Bellini, singers Giulia Grisi, Mario Candia), but also by historians, journalists, novelists, and politicians. Mary Ann Smart’s lecture, “Spies and Sopranos,” will explore this Parisian salon culture and its influence on the operas of Donizetti and Bellini in the 1830s and 1840s.
Smart’s large body of work focuses on the social and historical bases for musical expression in 19th-century European opera. Her recent projects have focused on the historical reconstruction of 19th-century staging, theories of gesture and gaze, composers’ collaborations with female singers, and the representation of the body in the musical vocabulary of Italian opera. Her book-in-progress, Risorgimento Fantasies, excavates links between opera and progressive political thought in Italy before Verdi. Other new projects concern the crisis of opera in early 19th-century Germany and the legacy of melodrama, as well as an analysis of contemporary operatic staging in relation to film aesthetics.
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| John Bokina |
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(Political Science, University of Texas-Pan American)
November 4, 2005
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Undergraduate Courses