Doctoral Colloquium (Music): Trevor Penoyer-Kulin, PhD candidate in Musicology

The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.

Music Research Colloquium presents:

"Contradictions in Nineteenth-Century French Opérette"

Trevor Penoyer-Kulin (PhD candidate, musicology)

Friday, 5 February 2021 at 16:30

https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/85273664103

French operetta, or opérette, may be loosely defined as a form of light opera that developed in France as an alternative to the weightier entertainments of opéra comique and opéra. More precisely, it can be defined as that genre of French comic opera which emerged first during the 1850s and was the province of small, private, Parisian theatres like the Bouffes-Parisiens and the Folies-Nouvelles. Neither of these two definitions however, really tells the full story of what opérette was, nor its unique development and relationship to other genres of the time. My presentation fleshes that story out by offering a different perspective on opérette; one that focuses on its ambiguities and contradictions rather than on drawing clear definitional lines. These contradictions I locate both in its formal designs and discourses (is it opérette or opéra comique? opérette or vaudeville?), but also in the material contexts of its inception and subsequent development.In this way, my presentation will introduce a new method for understanding the genre.

upcoming Music Research Colloquium events:

Feb. 12: Song Wang (music technology PhD)

Feb. 19: Sam Howes (music theory PhD)

Feb. 26: Judy Lochhead (theory guest)

Mar. 12: MGSS conference

Mar. 19: Tom Posen (Research Alive student presentation)

Mar. 26: Daphne Tan (theory guest)

Apr. 2: Anaar Desai-Stephens (musicology guest)

Apr. 9: Yayoi Uno Everett (theory guest)

Apr. 16: Cesar Favila (MGSS guest)