Opera Studies Forum
The University of Iowa Opera Studies Forum was established in 1999 to provide opportunities to explore opera and related genres from interdisciplinary perspectives. The forum’s purpose is to bring together scholars, practitioners, and members of the public who have special expertise or interest in opera to share their views on various issues associated with research and performance of operatic works. From its inception, the Opera Studies Forum has drawn faculty and advanced graduate students from several departments including Musicology, Music Theory, French and Italian, Classics, German, Theater Arts, History, Religion, Film Studies, American Studies, Women’s Studies, Art History, English, and others; units within International Programs such as CREEES, CAPS, and SASP; as well as participants from sister institutions and the community.
The activities of the forum include both formal and informal gatherings addressing myriad topics ranging from aesthetics to performance practices and from literature to religion. Many of our on-campus members share their recent research with the group through paper presentations and discussions of new and exciting work in progress. Graduate students too have had opportunities to present their ongoing work to a wide group of scholars for feedback. We invite everyone to join us for these events; please check News and Events.
Beginning in fall 2000 the Opera Studies Forum, with generous financial assistance from the Vice President for Research, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the School of Music, began to bring guest speakers to campus on a regular basis. The following year it became one of the constituent units in International Programs. A number of the forum’s lectures have been offered in collaboration with other departments or programs on campus, including the Sound Research Seminar, Classics Colloquium, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Interdisciplinary Colloquium, School of Music Choral Area, and Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Among the speakers who have been hosted by the Opera Studies Group are Rosamund Bartlett, David Charlton, Jonathan Glixon, Philip Gossett, Larry Hamberlin, Ellen T. Harris, Thomas L. Riis, Michael Pisani, Pierpaolo Polzonetti, Hilary Poriss, Mary Hunter, David Levin, David Rosen, Mary Ann Smart, and Ruth Smith.
The Opera Studies Forum also was integral to the Obermann Center Summer Research Seminar in 2001. “Opera in Context: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Creation, Performance, and Reception,” co-directed by Downing Thomas (French and Italian) and Roberta Marvin (International Studies) focused on the relationship between opera and the social worlds in which, and for which, it was created. Scholars addressed the ways in which individual operas or operatic traditions have shaped, and been shaped by, their publics and the cultural and political circumstances in which they existed. New approaches to opera and new problems in opera studies were particularly encouraged. In addition to the select group of seminar participants drawn from the United States, Canada, France, and England, several invited guests participated in the seminar: Wye J. Allanbrook (University of California, Berkeley), David Levin (University of Chicago), Herbert Lindenberger (Stanford University), Harold Powers (Princeton University), and Ellen Rosand (Yale University). A book of essays based on the seminar, titled Operatic Migrations: Transforming Works and Crossing Boundaries, was published by Ashgate Press in 2006 and was short-listed for the American Musicological Society’s Ruth Solie Award.
In fall 2001 International Programs at the University of Iowa's sponsored a major lecture series as part of the Opera Studies Forum’s activities. Titled “Perspectives on the Music of Verdi” and coordinated by Roberta M. Marvin, the series commemorated the centenary of the death of Giuseppe Verdi with lectures and seminars, by bringing four distinguished opera scholars to the University of Iowa: Julian Budden, Philip Gossett, Roger Parker, and Pierluigi Petrobelli. The Opera Studies Forum has also hosted two University of Iowa Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Professorships, Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon in 2004 and Hebert Lindenberger in 2007 (see “Past Events” for additional information).