Book of Abstracts. - Sound und Performance

Bayreuth is a city most people will probably associate with the
name of Richard Wagner. Like hardly any other place in the
world, Bayreuth thus is a synonym for a particular sound, well
known as the ‚Wagner-sound’. When in 1876 the orchestra vanished
from the beholders sight into a depth which Wagner has
once called the ‚mystic abyss’, this became a turning point both
in theatre and media history, which cannot be overestimated.
The aesthetic of illusion that dominates the media undoubtedly
relates to this particular moment in history.
Certainly Bayreuth is one of the places to study the historical dimension
of the fact, that we got used to sounds being detached
from its material sources. Whenever for example critics bewail,
that in contemporary Wagner-opera productions the mise en
scène does not find the appropriate images to carry across
what the music means, this split in the perception tells a great
deal about how images and sounds alter differently throughout
the ages. In this respect one could maintain, that music-theatre
considered in the broadest sense from opera to everyday-performances,
particularly challenges the existing historiographic
approaches in theatre studies, musicology and media studies,
as it is always related to both, the live-performance as well as
the written or technically inscribed notation.
Talking about Wagner and Bayreuth must eventually recall a
whole range of cultural and political issues this congress touches
upon. Generally speaking one can investigate how images
and sounds inform us about our social reality in times of the
crisis of representation. More particularly the Bayreuth sound
appears as historically and culturally loaded. Wagner not only
is a high-ranking brand name on the global cultural market,
his name also recalls a vivid political debate where and under
which condition one should play his music which for many after
the Shoa sounds unbearably whereas others find it almost
unbearably beautiful. No doubt, performing the Wagner sound
is always good for a controversy carrying inevitably extreme
opinions as e.g. that of the renowned conductor Christian Thielemann,
who repeatedly claims, that music, as one of the more
abstract arts could not possibly carry any cultural meaning.
This way of thinking could be interpreted as trying to keep up
to a strict disciplinary when it comes to reflect upon music. Given
the historical dimension of „Sound and Performance”, the
Bayreuth cluster MusicTheatre as well as the Research Institute
for Music Theatre Studies Thurnau undeniably promote the idea
to question disciplinary boundaries, in order not to fall back
into an orthodox reading of music. We consider music all the
way down to its smallest bits of sounds, noise and silence as
always already related to specific historical and cultural actors,
which perform it. Considering theatre studies and musicology
as part of the wider field of cultural studies, makes the University
of Bayreuth a particularly interesting place to host the 11th
biennial congress of the Society of Theatre Research. We wish
all participants a pleasant stay at this place of interest for musicologist
and theatre scholars. May you all benefit from and feel
inspired by the presentations and discussions ahead of us! And
may you all eventually enjoy one or two pints of the local beer.
Wolf-Dieter Ernst, Anno Mungen, Berenika Szymanski-Düll,
Melanie Fritsch und Nora Niethammer
Welcome to Bayreuth!
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