Monthly Regular Meeting April 2022 (The 201st Meeting of Opera Research Group)
Waseda Institute for Research in Opera and Music Theatre (WIROM), Comprehensive Research Organization, Waseda University
- Time and Date: April 9th (Sat.) 2022, 16:30-18:00 (JST)
- Format: Online meeting (Zoom)
– Registration is required by April 6th (Wed.). Please fill out the following Google-Form:
-The invitation e-mail via zoom will be sent to the registrants on April 8th. (Currently closed.) - Presenter : KATO, Keisuke
- Affiliation, Position: Lecturer, Language Education Center, Tokai University
- Title : “Isabella and her resistance to ‘puritanische Heuchelei‘ in Das Liebesverbot, by Richard Wagner”
- Language: Japanese
- Abstract:
Isabella, the female protagonist in Das Liebesverbot, by Richard Wagner, has several unique aspects as a female figure in the operas of Wagner: she plays a central role in this work, but nevertheless she is not destined to die. She has little interest in love for men and focuses on exposing the deception and corruption of an autocratic governor. As Wagner mentions in his autobiography, Das Liebesverbot is based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, and Isabella in Das Liebesverbot has much in common with the person of the same name in Shakespeare’s work: both of them are nuns and leave their monastery to appeal directly to a governor in order to have their brother’s death sentence withdrawn. However, Isabella’s strong will to expose injustice, mentioned above, is not an influence of the work by Shakespeare; when the governor unethically offers to withdraw the death penalty in exchange for her having sexual intercourse with him, Isabella in Das Liebesverbot quickly comes up with a plan to trap him and puts it into action, while Isabella in Measure for Measure quickly gives up on her brother’s rescue. To understand Wagner’s intentions behind these modifications, it is necessary to examine the background against which Das Liebesverbot was written. - Profile of Presenter:
Keisuke Kato is a lecturer in German und German culture at Tokai University. His research field is German Literature, especially the plays and librettos of the 19th century. He focuses on the works of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and its critical expression of European society. His PhD in literature (Sophia University, Japan, 2021) examined the figure of Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen as a characterization of numerous defects in the monarchy and Wagner’s disappointment in it. He is the author of “Untergang eines Herrschers als Sozialkritik. Richard Wagners Das Liebesverbot” (2016) and “Die Wandlung der Herrscher-Figur von Wagners Die Sage von den Nibelungen und Siegfrieds Tod zu Der Ring des Nibelungen” (2018). - Moderator : YAGISHITA, Emi
Next meeting
Next meeting will be held on May 14th (Sat.) 2022
Presenter : MORI, Yoshiko
Moderator : SATO, Suguru
◆Waseda Institute for Research in Opera and Music Theatre (WIROM), Comprehensive Research Organization, Waseda University
e-mail address: operaken-uketsuke[at]list.waseda.jp ( [at] = @)
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