Music Theatre Horror - Music and Sound in the London Gothic Play around 1800

• Applicant: Dr. Anna Ricke
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 525522308

The project focuses on music theatre horror, i.e. staged realizations of uncanniness, terror and horror in operas, melodramas and plays with music. Using the example of the London Gothic play around 1800, the project explores the origins, forms and developments of music theatre horror to decipher its connections to representations transcending time and genre. In Gothic plays popular from the 1790s onwards, music and sound contributed significantly to the impact of genre typical tropes including dungeons, Gothic monasteries, castles and demonic or spectral apparitions. The range of horror and terror to be gathered under the umbrella of the horror concept and within the genre itself gives insight into conventions of music theatre horror, particularly in combination with the diversity within the Gothic play genre, which includes operas, plays with music as well as melodramas. This then points to potential insights into genre-specific explorations of the varied facets of horror, which may close an essential research gap within the context of the "uncanny" or "horror" in music. Considering Gothic plays from a performative instead of a literary perspective likewise offers methodologically valuable approaches leading to a fuller understanding and analysis of popular music/theatre hybrid forms. Working hypotheses derived from previous research and preliminary work, namely that music and sound - especially in combination - played an essential role in representations of horror and terror in the Gothic play, and that shifts in music/theatre performance occurred around 1800, with music and sound now used specifically to enhance the horror effect of the plays, provide the foundation for research. The project will contextualize findings on the Gothic play with instances of uncanniness, terror and horror found in other genres and time periods, opening up the purview to supra-temporal parallels and differences as well as developments in the language of sound. The project will thus contribute valuably to musicological research on the Gothic play, which has previously been explored solely within literature or theatre studies, but also offer fresh perspectives to later music theatre representations of horror and terror from Freischütz, Robert le Diable or La nonne sanglante to modern horror films and video games.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants