Project for provenance research concerning the holdings entering the collection between 1933 - 1945, Theatre Collection Cologne (TWS). Supported by UoC and TWS.

Book-Project: Stage design and its practices of audio-visual narration in 19 th century theatre.

My research focusses on scenography and the practices of audio-visual narration inscribed into stage designs (BildRaumPraktiken). The main focus is on 19 th century theatre in central Europe, with a special focus on transnational exchanges between the countries. I am exploring how theatre takes part in the formation of visual perception and vision guidance. Theatre is analysed next to stereoscopic entertainment media, such as peep boxes or picture experiments, aiming to show how a set of different media consolidate mechanisms of visual narration such as moving images, transparency effects, special depth or blending. I would like to explore the spread of ‘canonical’ scenarios (with Diana Taylor (2003) thought as unit of materiality, visuality and acoustic) on the basis of key scenes of the repertoire, such as the wolves canyon in „Der Freischütz“ (C.M. v. Weber, 1823), the witches kitchen in „Faust“ (Goethe, 1829) or the travels in „Oberon“ (C.M. v. Weber, 1826). This repertoire of extraordinary scenes shows the edge of musical thinking in relation to visual movements and material (and technological) conditions of performances. Very often these scenes are paradigmatic not just in musical or dramaturgical matters but also in their reflection on contemporary developments of (media-)technologies.