Welcome to the website of the DFG transfer project
"Materiality and Aesthetic Transformation.
The Festa teatrale L'Huomo on the Bayreuth Opera Stage".
On the following pages we inform you about the DFG project, you will find specific information about L'Huomo, our project partners and the performances at the Margravial Opera House on 5 and 6 May 2023.
Transfer research project, funded by the DFG, 2021-2023 at the Chair of Musicology, University of Bayreuth, Prof. Dr. Kordula Knaus, Dr. Andrea Zedler
Margravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth's music and opera culture is still tangible in its materiality within the Margravial Opera House, opened in 1748 and lavishly restored between 2012 and 2018. With her artistic (especially poetic) activities, Wilhelmine set remarkable aesthetic accents in the European opera landscape. A highlight of her activities is the performance of the festa teatrale L’Huomo (libretto by Wilhelmine von Bayreuth / music mostly by Andrea Bernasconi) in the Margravial Opera House. It was staged in 1754 in honor of the visit of her brother, the King in Prussia Friedrich II (“the great”). The research project that started in September 2021 aims at gaining insights into the aesthetic strategies of Wilhelmine through a visually supported historically informed performance of L’Huomo that will take place at the Margravial Opera House
The project works with multiple transfers that include three project partners: Musica Bayreuth, the Bavarian Broadcasting Company, and the Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes. Initially, the findings of the project “Opera buffa as a European Phenomeon” (operabuffa.uni-bayreuth.de) will be further developed in the transfer project; moreover, the aspects of the specific aesthetic strategies at the Margravial Court will be elaborated. To this end, the insights gained in the academic discourse will be communicated in the form of workshops to the project partners, but also to an academically interested public. Above all, however, a scholarly-critical edition of L’Huomo will be presented. This will provide the basis for the performance of the opera in the Margravial Opera House, which is planned in conjunction with the opening of the Opera House Museum. The concept and implementation will be realized by the project team together with the project partners. In a final transfer step, the results and the recording of the performance will be presented to the public in the Opera House Museum.