Acting in the Late Enlightenment (1740-1800)
4-6 December 2014
Performing Premodernity held an international symposium entitled Acting in the Late Enlightenment (1740-1800). Scholars and practitioners gathered for a day of lectures and discussions about acting in the second half of the late eighteenth century, and about the revival of period acting principles on the modern stage.
1740-1800 was the period of the theatrical reforms that began with David Garrick, Dénis Diderot and others, and within the research group we are particularly interested in the relationship between these Enlightenment reforms and French and Italian opera. Traditionally, these reforms are said to have put greater emphasis on pantomimic gesture (as opposed to gesture as an extension of the word), on individualized characterization (as opposed to generic types) and on the identification of the audience with the characters (as opposed to the theatricality of the rhetorical mode of theatre), but do these distinctions hold water, and in what ways did these principles differ from e.g. those of twentieth-century naturalistic acting? And what challenges do this period pose for artistic practitioners who want to explore the theatrical aesthetics of this period?
Our guests from abroad included the opera directors Deda Cristina Colonna (Italy), Helena Kazárová (the Czech Republic) and Sigrid T’Hooft (Belgium), as well as the theatre researchers Jette Barnholdt Hansen (Denmark) and Jed Wentz (the Netherlands/USA).
Thursday, 4 December 2014:
9.30-9.45. Welcome: Mark Tatlow.
9.45-10.45. Inga Lewenhaupt (PhD in Performance Studies, former director of the Drottningholm
Theatre Museum): “Changes in Acting Style between the Early and the Late Eighteenth Century”.
11.00-12.00. Roland Lysell (Professor in Comparative Literature, Stockholm University): “The
Actor in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries”.
12.00-13.30. Lunch break.
13.30-14.30. Willmar Sauter (Professor Emeritus in Performance Studies, Stockholm University):
“Premodernity as a Concept for the Not-Yet-Modern”.
14.45-15.45. Magnus Tessing Schneider (Postdoctoral research fellow, Performing Premodernity):
“The Natural and the Civilized Actor: Reflections on the Theatre of Ranieri de’ Calzabigi”.
15.45-16.15. Coffee break.
16.15-17.15. Gunnel Bergström (PhD in Performance Studies, opera director): “Handel, Mozart and
the Singer: A Director’s Perspective”.
17.15-18.00. General discussion. Moderator: Mark Tatlow.
A report from the second day of the symposium is now available online as Performing Premodernity Volume 2 here.
6th December 2014
