CFP: After the Magic Flute (UCAL, Berkeley)

AFTER THE MAGIC FLUTE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
5 - 6 MARCH 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS

Call for Papers (abstract deadline: September 1, 2009)

As Tamino stands before the three temple doors in Act I of The Magic Flute, he is about to embark on a humbling complication of the good-evil alignments he (and we) had previously assigned to the Queen of the Night and Sarastro. Interpretive work on Mozart’s enduringly perplexing Singspiel is currently at a similar threshold. Recent scholarship has shifted away from the Masonic and Enlightenment-allegory readings of past decades in favor of increasingly decentralized readings that consider the work’s implications with respect to race, gender, voice, and agency. In addition, new historical information has emerged regarding the immediate context of The Magic Flute within the Viennese theatrical tradition; a new edition of the autograph score is about to be published; and adventurous (often activist) productions set everywhere from South Africa, to a Berlin subway station, to the trenches of World War I have attracted the collaboration of artists as varied as William Kentridge, Julie Taymor, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, and Kenneth Branagh.

The goal of this interdisciplinary conference is to take the measure of these new developments in the history and historiography of The Magic Flute, with the “after” of the conference’s title referring not exclusively to inquiries regarding adaptation or reception, but rather signaling a critical reevaluation of the persistent urge to “unlock” The Magic Flute with a single, symbolic key. The conference committee welcomes proposals from scholars interested in examining The Magic Flute from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, film and media studies, performance studies, cultural and social history, literary and art history, and reception studies. Featured speakers will include Wye J. Allanbrook (Emerita, Musicology, University of California, Berkeley) and Jane Brown (Germanics and Comparative Literature, University of Washington).

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words by September 1, 2009 to conference organizer Adeline Mueller (aomueller at berkeley.edu). Notification of acceptance will be sent via email on October 1.

Adeline Mueller
Department of Music
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1200
aomueller at berkeley.edu

CFP: Opera and Politics in the Ancien Régime (UCLA)

OPERA AND POLITICS IN THE ANCIEN RÉGIME
UNIVERISTY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
27 - 28 FEBRUARY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

This conference highlights current research on the politics of French opera, from its beginnings under the Sun King through the middle years of Louis XV’s reign. Historians of music, literature, and the performing arts have long explored the absolutist politics of opera in France, especially in relation to the tragédies en musique of Quinault and Lully. Yet historians’ understanding of the ancien régime and its politics has shifted in recent years, with many questioning the earlier emphasis on the centralizing monarchical state and drawing attention to other aspects of French governmentality and political life. Cultural historians have likewise reconsidered the earlier focus on absolutist representation, recognizing the importance of other modes of French political culture, even in royal performances. At the same time, scholars have devoted more attention to comic opera, opera-ballet, and operatic parodies, which mediated the political perspectives of a wider social register.

In the early eighteenth century, French opera also became more cosmopolitan, as is clear from the popularity of operatic subjects, styles, and performers imported from Italy, the colonies, and other foreign locales. This cosmopolitanism begged the question of what precisely was “French” about French opera, a problem that became more urgent and more difficult to resolve as the century progressed. Philosophes, critics, and musical amateurs reflected extensively on such questions in the period’s many querelles, suggesting that part of opera’s attraction was as an occasion to imagine new forms of political community, in addition to its long-standing role in conserving the old.

Scheduled speakers include John Powell, Rose Pruiksma, Charles Dill, William Weber, Geoffrey Burgess, Olivia Bloechl, Raphaëlle Legrand, Downing Thomas, Don Fader, and Georgia Cowart.

Full description, program, and registration information are available at:
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/c1718cs/opera08.htm

CFP: Echo Conference: Music and Humor (UCLA)

2009 ECHO CONFERENCE: MUSIC AND HUMOUR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
5 - 6 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Submission deadline: February 27, 2009
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Dell’Antonio
University of Texas, Austin

From bawdy troubadour songs to Haydn’s string quartets, from comic opera to Monty Python sketches, music has been used as a vehicle for comedic expression in vastly different settings and for various purposes. There are many possible avenues of inquiry on this issue, including investigations of irony, parody, satire, camp, puns, and other perhaps less tasteful form of comic relief.

Echo: a music-centered journal is pleased to announce its fourth annual conference, "Music and Humor," to be held at UCLA on June 5-6, 2009. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers on this theme. Submissions must be received by February 27th and may be sent electronically to echoconf at ucla.edu (please put "Echo Conference Submission" and your last name in the subject line).

Please visit http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume8-Issue1/conference09.html for full information.