Love to Death: Transforming Opera
Incorporating the Royal Musical Association Annual Conference
31 May – 2 June 2012
The School of Music, Cardiff University will be hosting an international academic conference, incorporating the annual conference of the Royal Musical Association, at Wales Millennium Centre, the home of Welsh National Opera, in 2012. This conference, in a world-class setting, presents an outstanding opportunity to bring together scholars, musicians and the general public to reflect upon the impact academic research may have in a wider performance and reception context. The event will include Welsh National Opera’s performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Puccini’s La bohème, and the works of both composers will provide major themes for debate.
Call for Papers:
Abstracts (no more than 400 words) are invited for 20-minute papers which present a wide variety of critical and interdisciplinary approaches, focusing on notions of cultural and aesthetic transfer.
Specific conference themes, which extend beyond opera, include:
musical responses to the operas of Wagner and Puccini
the reciprocal influences of European operatic cultures
ageing and late-style
Celtic legend
performers (historic and contemporary)
opera beyond the opera house
Session proposals are also welcome. A rationale (no more than 500 words) for the session should be submitted by the convenor along with the individual paper abstracts.
Abstracts should be sent by email as Word attachments to the conference organiser Dr Clair Rowden (rowdencs@cardiff.ac.uk). The deadline for abstract submissions is Wednesday 28 September.
Notification of acceptance/rejection for the conference will be sent by email by the end of October. A provisional programme will be available by the end of November.
The academic conference will run parallel to WNO Extra public accessibility events, certain sessions being available to both academics and the public. These will include:
Public Keynote address: Linda and Michael Hutcheon (University of Toronto): The ‘Germanic Flood’: The Ageing Verdi, the young Puccini, and Wagnerism. Event chaired by CAScIOPE (Cardiff University Ageing, Science and Older People), a multi-disciplinary research network spanning many Schools in Cardiff University.
Public Round Table: Made up of musicians, conductors and academics, this round table session will discuss Tristan und Isolde and La bohème, their adaptations and appropriations in modern culture, transferences in performance space, and other unusual modes of performance.
Details of registration and conference fees will follow in due course. Full package conference fees will include tickets to both Tristan und Isolde and La bohème. A day rate will also be available for those delegates wishing not to attend the opera performances. A list of hotels to suit all budgets within easy walking distance of the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay will also be provided.
Programme Committee
Dr Clair Rowden (Cardiff University)
Dr David Beard (Cardiff University)
Professor David Wyn Jones (Cardiff University)
Professor Rachel Cowgill (Cardiff University)
Dr Alexandra Wilson (Oxford Brookes University)
Dr Barbara Eichner (Oxford Brookes University)
