Research Workshop: Music and the Melodramatic Aesthetic
University of Nottingham (Dec 2007—Nov 2008)
PI: Sarah Hibberd
The stage genre of melodrama that emerged in the boulevard theatres of Paris
around 1800 presented its audiences with clear and unambiguous visible and
audible signs expressing the moral struggle between good and evil. Physical
gesture, mise en scène and music were as important in communicating meaning
as spoken dialogue. However, the role of music has traditionally been neglected
by musicologists and drama scholars alike, owing in part to its simple - and what
has been perceived in negative terms as clichéd - vocabulary. Specifically, the
manner in which text, visual image and music relate to each other to create
‘meanings’ in the stage genre, and the evolution of this relationship in
nineteenth-century opera, film and other hybrid musico-dramatic works, have not
been examined systematically and across disciplines. This project seeks to
address this lack of interdisciplinary dialogue and theoretical approach.
* a description of the activities of the network/workshops and the
themes explored
The project aimed to advance thinking on the melodramatic aesthetic in the
following ways:
a) move beyond Brooks's literary 'idea' and build on recent work by analysing
melodrama as a performance process, and as an aesthetic category, in which
music has a crucial role
b) reveal ways in which meanings can be constructed, and notions of pleasure
uncovered, through the interrelationship of speech, gesture, image and music in
scenes of high emotion and moral conflict
c) trace this interrelationship through theatre, opera and film to more recent
hybrid genres, in order to establish the extent to which the melodramatic
aesthetic is a meaningful label beyond the nineteenth century.
This intellectual framework determined the activities of the project during the
funded period, and formed the basis of the outputs. Practitioners and academics
from different disciplines came together in the following activities:
Four workshops/panels:
1. Melodrama on Stage: workshop, performance and discussion based on a scene
from Holcroft’s A Tale of Mystery (1802), music by Thomas Busby.
The nature of the relationship between music, speech and gesture; the
importance of a (historical) shared vocabulary and sensibility; the relationship
between audience and actors; and the power of music to guide both actors and
audience in their understanding of a scene or moment were all examined.
2. Melodrama from Stage to Screen: panel at British Silent Film Festival, including
four presentations focusing on the role of music and including practical
demonstration.
In contrasting ways, the four presentations highlighted the importance of
music's mediating role in the transition between genres - from stage to silent
film to talkie - and its ability to shape meaning. A variety of melodramatic
works, were examined, including late nineteenth-century opera, early
phonograph recordings, a silent Sweeney Todd and some of Hitchcocks early
talkies. The perspectives of accompanist, actor and audience were variously
foregrounded.
3. Melodrama and the Modern Stage: presentation by the composer Edward
Rushton on his new work On the Edge.
Rushton addressed modern expectations and taste; the practicalities of
synchronising music, text and image; and ways in which place and physicality in
sound might be realized – from the perspective of composer and performer.
4. Melodrama and Opera: presentations, demonstration, discussion and a
workshop exploring the melodramatic qualities of Verdi’s Macbeth, in
collaboration with Opera North.
The two presentations focused on melodrama as a sensory experience, and on
the relationship between physical and musical gestures. Members of the opera
North team explained the rationale behind a production that in some senses
sought to neutralize the melodramatic element of the opera, and performed
some scenes by way of illustration. After general discussion, opened to the
audience, a workshop explored how a melodramatic body might behave. During
the day the different preoccupations of academic historians and modern
practitioners were highlighted: the interest in understanding the melodramatic
vs. the need to adapt it to modern taste; the fascination with understanding
music as a fixed 'text' vs. a less reverential approach to the music and its
supposed meaning and function; and how we as performers and audience
members respond to the juxtapositions of contrasting moods and the
heightened emotions that characterise the opera.
Performance:
5. Ghosts before Breakfast: a programme of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
works exploring the interaction between sound and image, spoken text and music
by Strauss, Richter, Poe, Goebbels, Kagel. And the premiere of Edward Rushton’s
On the Edge, a boldly innovative, cross-genre project, with text by Dagny
Gioulami and video images by Syl Bertulius. The story, set in the Swiss Jungfrau
region, takes as its starting point the memoirs of Sir Arnold Lunn, the inventor of
the slalom, and his recollection of his wife's near-fatal accident while climbing the
Jungfrau. The scenario also weaves in the terrifying booming sounds that herald
an avalanche, a light-hearted philosophical discussion of the purpose of sport and
a Swiss folktale. The 35-minute piece alternates music and narration to create a
work which, in the composer's own words, is 'colourful, strange, multilayered and
slightly absurd'.
The concert focused on works in the German tradition of melodrama - unstaged,
musically accompanied recitation - together with more recent works that
deployed film and other visual elements. This offered a different perspective on
the melodramatic aesthetic to that offered in the project’s previous activities, and
On the Edge in many ways turned nineteenth-century ideas of melodramatic
fusion (derived from theatrical practice) on their head, with free association of
text, image and music, rather than precise synchronisation, and imagined and
multiple narratives driving the work.
Postgraduate study day:
6. Melodrama and the Interdisciplinary Challenge: three presentations from
scholars working in the disciplines of music, drama and film, followed by
discussion.
Methodological issues such as bridging the high/low, visual/aural,
academic/practical divides were addressed in papers that presented case-studies
of melodramatic works, each from a different disciplinary perspective. The
importance of understanding melodrama as an organic process - in which music,
gesture and text are inseparable – and as a performance - emerged as common
themes that echoed with the findings of the previous workshops/panels.
Conference:
7. Music and the Melodramatic Aesthetic: sixty delegates attended this
interdisciplinary and international meeting; 30 papers with discussion, a keynote
address, and the screening of the silent Within the Law (1923, dir. Frank Lloyd)
with piano accompaniment.
Recurring themes running through the conference centred on music's role as a
mediating force between different 'spaces', and included the mutability of 'voice'
and the creative tension between high and low cultural traditions, and between
eighteenth-century and romantic aesthetics. It became clear that ideas and
critical approaches associated with certain disciplines and/or repertories can
profitably be shared, and that the 'melodramatic' is a useful tool with which to
understand repertory from the eighteenth through to the twentieth
centuries - embracing the overlapping categories of genre, technique and
aesthetic. (These ideas are examined in depth in the edited volume Melodramatic
Voices based on papers from the conference.)
* overview of the people and organisations involved and the frequency
and type of collaborations
Inter-institutional, interdisciplinary and academic-practical collaboration was a
feature (indeed an aim) of the project as a whole. The events took place between
March and September 2008, with some people involved in more than one event.
Full details are given on the project website.
Individual participants included:
 academics (music, film modern languages, drama) from Nottingham and
from other institutions (Universities of Manchester, East Anglia)
 practitioners (singers, musicians, directors, composers, actors)
Non-academic participating institutions included:
 Opera North (Leeds), Broadway Cinema (Nottingham), British Film
Institute (London), Lakeside (Nottingham)
Workshops/panels:
1. Sarah Hibberd (Music), Joanna Robinson (English), Cynthia Marsh (Modern
Languages) (director) [all Nottingham]; six students (actors and pianist); Todd
Hinds (physical theatre practitioner) (Nottingham); David Mayer (Manchester),
Nanette Nielsen (UEA), Ann Featherstone (Manchester), research students
(discussants). 13 March 2008, Music Department (Nottingham).
2. Hibberd, Philip Carli (Eastman House, Rochester NY), Neil Brand (London),
Polly Goodwin (London), with Broadway Cinema and BFI. Audience: delegates at
the British Silent Film Festival (academics, general public). 6 April 2008,
Broadway Cinema, Nottingham.
3. Edward Rushton (Zürich), staff and students, Music Dept, Nottingham. 21 April
2008, Music Department (Nottingham).
4. Hibberd, Julie Sanders (Nottingham, English), Susan Rutherford (Manchester,
Music); Opera North team (director, singers, repetiteur); Joyce Henderson
(physical theatre practitioner) (London), with Lakeside. Audience incl Nottingham
staff and students, general public. 25 May 2008, Djanogly Recital Hall
(Nottingham).
Performance:
5. Counterpoise, Richard Angas (narrator), Barry Millington (London), with
Lakeside. Audience incl Nottingham staff and students, general public. 25 April
2008, Djanogly Recital Hall, Nottingham.
PG study day:
6. Hibberd (Music), Robinson (English), Jacob Smith (Film and TV Studies), chair
Sanders (English) [all Nottingham]; research students and staff from all three
departments. 25 May 2008, Music Department (Nottingham).
Conference:
7. Hibberd and Smith (organisers); delegates (practitioners, academics (incl
students) from Music, English/Drama, Film Studies) from UK, France, Germany,
Malta, Denmark, Finland, US, Canada; Carli (pianist). Audience for screening incl
Nottingham staff and students, general public. 5-7 September 2008, Hugh
Stewart Hall and Djanogly Recital Hall, Nottingham.
* an evaluation of how the thematic area has been advanced through
the network
The principal ways in which the thematic area has been advanced through the life
of the project are through:
1. New connections:
 between academics and practitioners (notably in the four
workshops/panels)
 within the discipline of musicology (notably at the conference)
 between disciplines (in all the events).
Not only was melodrama illuminated from different angles, but we were all
made aware of approaches, repertories and ideas being explored by others –
thus stimulating meaningful cross-disciplinary dialogue and creating a virtual
melodrama community. New collaborative projects and activities, building on
this new network are listed below.
2. Practical experimentation and discussion, documented in the following
outputs:
 twenty-two video clips on the website and full DVDs of three of the
workshops/panels: these demonstrate the way in which we developed our
idea of melodrama as a performance process through the project, notably
in the workshops/panels (the Rushton presentation was not filmed, as it
was a late extra and had not been included in the filming budget). The
clips are accessible to all, copies of the DVDs are held at the University’s
Hallward and Denis Arnold Music Libraries
 forthcoming volume Melodramatic Voices: this collection of essays, based
on papers given at the conference, provides a considered response to the
ideas posed at the start of the project and discussed and debated at the
conference. The volume reflects the conference’s unexpected focus on the
mutability of ‘voice’ in the melodramatic context – between speech and
song, between different worlds, between genres – located in physical
gesture or instrumental accompaniment as much as in the speaking or
singing human voice itself, and as a variously mediating, disruptive or
even autonomous force.
 blog on the website describing and reflecting on each activity
3. Varied repertory:
 unusual and rarely performed works (melodramas, hybrid works) and
more familiar (operas, musicals, films) were examined alongside each
other through the common lens of melodrama, which revealed often
surprising points of commonality and difference and new perspectives
* the key advances in understanding that emerged from the
discussions and, if applicable, particular reference to the advances in the
study of the relevant AHRC Strategic Programme.
The study of melodrama has hitherto been concentrated within disciplines, and
music’s role understood as primarily one of supporting and enhancing the text.
The key advances that emerged from the project included:
From the workshops/panels
Recognition of:
 a more organic view of the melodramatic process, in which music is crucial
 the degree to which practices (eg how music and text fit together) were a
matter of convention, and not notated
 music’s ability to guide both actors and audiences
 the subtle ways in which modern practitioners frequently seek to deny or
neutralise the melodramatic to bend it to modern expectations and taste
 the (sometimes surprisingly) close relationship between genres when
viewed from the perspective of a melodramatic aesthetic
From the conference
An understanding of:
 music as a mediating force between different ‘spaces’ (time, location,
real/dream, genres, voices) in a melodramatic context
 music’s centrality to the complex, multi-vocal narratives of ‘concert’
melodramas
 the mutability of the melodramatic voice, as variously conciliatory,
disruptive or autonomous
 the creative tension between high and low cultural practices (eg
melodrama and opera)
 melodrama’s impact not only on opera and film, but on the symphony and
other non-dramatic genres
 the inherent incompatability of music and speech at the heart of the
melodramatic aesthetic, rather than their easy fusion
Although it was keenly felt that we should resist collapsing methodologies and
repertories, it is clear that ideas and critical approaches associated with certain
disciplines and/or repertories can profitably be shared, and that the
‘melodramatic’ is a useful tool with which to understand and test repertory from
the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries - embracing the overlapping
categories of genre, technique and aesthetic.
* future topics for investigation that were identified
Future topics for investigation include:
 the idea that the melodrama aesthetic can be understood as underpinning
nineteenth-century music (not just drama) – complementing Peter
Brooks’s influential idea that the melodramatic mode underpins modern
literature (suggested by the conference papers that explored symphonic
works of Mahler and Berlioz, and analysed the orchestral elements of late
nineteenth-century melodramas by Janacek and others)
 the incompatibility rather than fusion of elements in other hybrid works of
music-text-image
 more flexible experimentation with the role of music in early nineteenthcentury stage melodrama
* future collaborations or research projects that emerged from the
network/workshops




a PG study day, Music and the Moving Image, will take place on 27 Feb
2009 at Nottingham and capitalise on interdisciplinary connections made
(esp. between Music, Film Studies and English) during the melodrama
project
a symposium 'Music made Visible' is being convened by Waeber at Duke
U., 2010, and an edited volume planned.
Hibberd is a member of the steering committee for a new AHRC Beyond
Text Network: The Sounds of Early Cinema in Britain
Hibberd is developing an application for a new collaborative project on
Music and the Spoken Voice