Perception and Reception of Opera, Berlin c. 1815–1828

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Fabian Kolb
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404119767

The project aims to explore practices of music theatre, taking Berlin in the period between about 1815 and 1828 as an example. Special attention is given to the complex interactions between both production-related aesthetics and institutional and cultural policies as well as the multilayer dimensions of operatic perception and reception history. Exploring a new integrative and expanded historiographical approach, hitherto ignored aspects such as the publication and commercialization of opera derivatives and adaptions, the presence of so-called ‘favourite pieces’ and other parts of operas within the context of contemporary concert realities are taken into account. At the same time, other elements such as the changing audience structure, specific expectations of opera, reception patterns and factors of popularity such as the casting of singers and their status as stars are considered as well. On the basis of differentiated data and a reconstruction of the repertoire and programme of the court theatres and the Königsstädtisches Theater (using a relational database including the exact number and dates of performances of individual operas, clarification of the various versions, arrangements and productions, casts and sources documenting their reception), phenomena such as the Freischütz euphoria in Berlin, the public perception of Spontini, the excitement related to Rossini, and the virtuoso cult surrounding various singers will be examined as examples in a comprehensive methodological matrix, integrating research on the multiple interrelations with the music market and the publishing industry (especially Adolph Martin Schlesinger). This approach promises to provide new insights into the processes of selection and success as well as the constituting factors involved in the formation of taste and the establishment of a canon, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of how music and opera was perceived in the period in general.Based on preliminary work, the project will provide an open access database, which precisely records the opera realities in Berlin between 1815 and 1828 within the interlinked categories "Libretto", "Opera", "Version", "Performance Series", "Performances", "Casts", "Adaptions / Music Publishing Products" and "Reviews". Furthermore, the project results are documented within two dissertation theses and a case study, dealing with the different reception phenomena. Interdisciplinary workshops flank the project research. In the spring / summer of 2021, on the occasion of the 200th anniversaries of the Berlin premieres of G. Spontini’s Olympia (German version) and C. M. von Weber's Freischütz, an international symposium will take place.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Axel Beer; Professor Dr. Klaus Pietschmann