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SUMMARY:Figaro in the Anti-Theatrical Imagination - Edmund Goehring (Unive
 rsity of Ontario)
DTSTART:20130522T160000Z
DTEND:20130522T170000Z
UID:TALK45548@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:30200
DESCRIPTION:Figaro in the Anti-Theatrical Imagination\nThe idea of theater
  as an inauthentic mode of activity\, as something like a convention to be
  overcome\, informs many recent commentaries on and productions of opera m
 ore generally\, as well as Mozart’s comedies in particular. With Le nozz
 e di Figaro\, this perspective is most evident in interpretations that que
 stion the sincerity and durability of its happy ending. This talk reconsid
 ers some of the premises informing such ironic readings of Figaro: their s
 trong separation of private feeling from public display\, along with their
  tendency to locate meaning in mechanisms in order to weaken the authority
  of mimesis -- all of which is to reinstate\, in modernist language\, long
 -standing objections to theater as a form of deceit.\n\nDebates from Mozar
 t’s day about the nature and purpose of theatre also take up this distru
 st of the stage\, to be sure\, but they also discover other potential in t
 heatre. And Figaro itself\, as a few from many possible examples will show
 \, adopts a different ethic about the stage. The opera\, holding up a mirr
 or to the world\, sees theatre reflecting off of its surface in everything
  from necessarily public reconciliations to ceremonies like marriage\, whi
 ch formalize in public ritual private feelings like love.
LOCATION:Recital Room\, Faculty of Music\, West Road
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