1. Aims and development

The project focused on interrelations of aesthetic theory, dramaturgy, spectatorial experience, theatrical space, and performance practices in late 18th-century theatre and opera; these interrelations were explored through a combination of academic and artistic research. At the centre of the project was the notion of theatrical practice: both the historical practices and the modern attempts to revive them. From the standpoint of academic research, the historical practices were approached from three different perspectives:
a. The theatrical space: What can practicing in the historical theatre space teach us about historical theatre practices?

b. The aesthetic discourse: What can the historical theatre practices teach us about the aesthetic discourse of the 18th century?

c. The dramatic works: What can they tell us about the construction and effect of the dramatic works from the period?

From the view of artistic research, it was examined how the theatre spaces and aesthetic discourse of the 18th century might enhance the reading of the dramatic works and scores as well as today’s performance practice.

The group had six members whose research centred on one or more of the above-mentioned perspectives. Meike Wagner and Willmar Sauter focused on the theatrical space, Petra Dotlačilová and Maria Gullstam on the aesthetic discourse, and Mark Tatlow and Magnus Tessing Schneider on the dramatic works.

While the project initially was meant to focus on the Drottningholm Court Theatre, the unexpected ending of Tatlow’s tenure as artistic director of the theatre in September 2013 required a re-design of the project. This became an opportunity to strengthen the European perspectives, by entering into partnerships with other historical theatres as well as artistic and academic networks and institutions in Sweden and abroad. The group has built up collaborations with Ulriksdals Palace Theatre (Confidencen) in Stockholm and with the Český Krumlov Castle Theatre in the Czech Republic.

2. Implementation

In addition to a number of internal study days, experimental workshops and performances, often conducted in historical theatres, have been the focal point of the group’s joint research activities. The stages of Drottningholm, Confidencen and Český Krumlov were used to examine 18th-century uses of acoustics, lighting and stage movement, respectively, in workshops that took place in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Stage productions and showings have been used to explore issues of historical practice in interaction with historical spaces and/or the 18th-century aesthetic discourse. This goes for the 2013 production of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at Drottningholm (Tatlow, conductor; Schneider, dramaturge); the 2014 production of Cavalli’s opera Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne at the historic Court Theatre in Copenhagen (Schneider, director); the 2015 production of Rousseau’s melodrama Pygmalion at Český Krumlov, which has since been performed at Riddarhuset in Stockholm and at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, while excerpts have been performed at Drottningholm and Confidencen (Tatlow, conductor; Gullstam and Schneider, dramaturgical team; Dotlačilová, costume expert); the 2016 production of Paisiello’s opera Nina and Morandi’s Comala at Vadstena Castle (Tatlow, conductor; Schneider, dramaturgical consultant); the 2017 semi-staged performance of Grétry’s Lucile in Anna Maria Lenngren’s translation at Riddarhuset (Tatlow, conductor; Gullstam, dramaturge); and the 2018 performance of Haydn’s cantata Arianna a Naxos and Millico’s cantata Gli Elisi o sia L’ombre degli eroi at Confidencen (Tatlow, conductor; Schneider, academic consultant). In particular, the Pygmalion production became a testing ground for the group’s joint experiments with historical performance practice. It has, like all practical experiments, stimulated theoretical and empirical research of historical sources and studies. This research has been presented at national and international conferences, and has been published in anthologies and academic journals.

3. Three most important contributions

The project’s joint research results can be summarized as follows, corresponding to the three perspectives and general research questions listed under point 1:

a. Practice and theatrical space. Partly on the basis of the experimental workshops and productions, two analytical approaches, “aesthetic historicity”(Sauter) and “praxeology in theatre historiography”(Wagner) have been developed, which centre on contemporary and historical theatre practices. Central to both approaches is the spectator’s aesthetic experience as a way of accessing a complex historical understanding.

b. Practice and aesthetic discourse. In their PhD theses, which deal with the development of the theatre costume in 18th-century Paris and with Rousseau’s theatre aesthetics, respectively, Dotlačilová and Gullstam study interrelations of the radical aesthetic discourse of the Enlightenment and theatrical practice.

c. Practice and dramatic works. While the aims and interests of the project are naturally related to those of the Historically Informed Performance (HIP) movement, Schneider and Tatlow have developed an increasingly critical stance towards its ideological and historiographical underpinnings and developed a new concept of HIP that widely involves critical discourse.

4. New research questions generated

a. How can insights from practical experimentation with historical materials and artefacts systematically enter historiographical knowlege?

b. How can theories that were shaped in the project further develop into sustainable methodology? In what respects must these theories be further tested and adapted through empirical and artistic research?

c. How may today’s theatrical practitioners take the communication with their audiences into account if their attempt to revive practices of the past includes also historical modes of communication? And how might the expansion of historical research areas in HIP imply a renegotiation of the relationship between academic and artistic research?

d. How may we define the late eighteenth-century concept of dramatic character, and how was it related to the aesthetic discourse and the scenic and musical performance practices of the time?

e. How was the theatrical representation of non-European cultures perceived by eighteenth-century audiences? Was the staging of the cultural other seen as an ideal or a counter-image of Europe, as a fantasy, or as a faithful reproduction?

5. International dimensions

The research of all group members (from five different European countries) is distinctly international in scope and subject matter, and the majority of the research output is written in English. As we all collaborate with international partners individually, the following refers only to the joint projects:

a. The group has been in continuous exchange with its associate research members Jed Wentz (Leiden University), David Wiles (University of Exeter) and Jette Barnholdt Hansen (University of Copenhagen), as well as with our artistic collaborators, stage director Deda Cristina Colonna (Milan) and opera singers and artistic researchers João Luís Paixão (University of Amsterdam) and Laila Cathleen Neuman (Leiden University).

b. The group has built up a collaboration with the castle theatre and study centre of Český Krumlov, led by Pavel Slavko, which has also led to a collaboration with Bayreuth University, focused on experimental workshops on site.

c. The group has organized, or co-organized, the following conferences or symposia: ‘La clemenza di Tito and Mozartian Aesthetics’ (Stockholm, August 2013); ‘Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne and 17th-Century Concepts of Character’ (Copenhagen, February 2014); ‘Acting in the Late Enlightenment (1740-1800)’ (Stockholm, December 2014); ‘Rousseau and the Theatre: Political-Aesthetic Ideals and Practices’ (Stockholm, August 2015); ‘Comala and Nina: Operatic Performance in the Age of Sensibility’ (Vadstena, August 2016); ‘Anna Maria Lenngren’s Enlightenment’ (Stockholm, March 2017); and ‘Aesthetics in Late Eighteenth-Century Theatre: Living, Performing, Experiencing the Enlightenment’ (Stockholm, May-June 2018).

d. With the exception of the Grétry/Lenngren event, all conferences, workshops, productions and semi-staged performances organized by the group involved international artists and academic specialists. In addition, the group organized curated panels for the conferences of the International Federation for Theatre Research in Hyderabad (2015) and Stockholm (2016). The project was a determining factor in the selection of the Stockholm department as host of the latter conference, which, with over 900 international delegates, was the largest theatre studies conference in history.

6. Dissemination

In addition to the forthcoming PhD theses of Gullstam (fall 2019) and Dotlačilová (spring 2020), the work of the group has resulted in two monographs: Sauter’s and Wiles’ book on the Drottningholm Court Theatre was published by Stockholm University Press (2014, open access); Schneider has signed a contract with Routledge for the publication of Mozart’s Don Giovanni: Transformations of A Role (July 2019). A volume based on the 2015 Rousseau conference was published with the Oxford Voltaire Foundation in 2017; and a volume based on the 2013 Mozart conference was published by Stockholm University Press (2018, open access). Schneider and Tatlow have signed a contract with the American music publisher A-R Editions for the publication of Arias for Luigi Bassi: Mozart’s First Don Giovanni (spring 2019). The proposal for a volume of articles by all group members and associate members, Performing Eighteenth-Century Theatre Today, is currently in review by Stockholm University Press (planned 2019, open access). Proceedings from the 2016 conference on Comala and Nina will be published at the beginning of 2019 with Open Access by LIR.journal (Gothenburg University).