- https://lilykassphd.com/
- I study issues of translation in both historical and contemporary opera performance. My dissertation, "Translating, A... moreI study issues of translation in both historical and contemporary opera performance. My dissertation, "Translating, Adapting, and Performing Opera in Cosmopolitan Europe: Lorenzo Da Ponte's Libretto Translations on the London Stage," examines the integral role that translation has played in opera history and that it continues to play in adapting works to new audiences and mediating between disparate places, times, and cultures. My focus is on opera translation in the context of late 18th-century London, but the core ideas in my work easily extend out from that specific setting and period. In my dissertation, I present an in-depth study of four operas, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Monsigny’s La Belle Arsène, Grétry’s Zémire et Azor, and Sacchini’s Arvire et Évélina, which were originally performed in French in Paris in the 1780s. They all subsequently appeared at London’s Italian opera house, the King’s Theatre, in the 1790s in Italian translations attributed to Lorenzo Da Ponte. In exploring these case studies through close analyses of printed and manuscript scores and libretti, documents from the theater, and Da Ponte’s own writings, I shed light on the circulation of music, texts, people, and ideas in Europe in the highly-charged years surrounding the French Revolution. By unlocking the potential of translation as a historical and cultural agent, my dissertation contributes to scholarship on issues such as cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and authorship.edit
Research Interests:
The Eastern State Penitentiary, located in Philadelphia, was opened for use as a prison in 1829 and closed in 1971. The penitentiary’s early practice of placing all inmates in solitary confinement has often misleadingly been referred to... more
The Eastern State Penitentiary, located in Philadelphia, was opened for use as a prison in 1829 and closed in 1971. The penitentiary’s early practice of placing all inmates in solitary confinement has often misleadingly been referred to as the “Silent System.” Sounds were present in the penitentiary, but they were carefully controlled and channeled towards the primary goal of the institution: forcing the prisoners to experience true penitence. The sounds that were made audible to the inmates were meant to signal the purpose of their imprisonment. Looms clattered inside cells as inmates were made to weave cloth; alarm bells rang from the central tower, discouraging escape; and perhaps most importantly, the gate clanged shut, symbolizing the permanence of the inmates’ separation from the outside world. My paper reveals that in addition to the manipulation of the inmate’s external soundworld, the prison also attempted to control the sounds inside the inmates’ minds, through encouraging inmates to read the Bible to themselves in their cells. Listening to the Eastern State Penitentiary brings into perspective previously overlooked aspects of the prisoners’ experience at the institution and clarifies how the sonic design of the prison contributed to its goal of reforming the inmates into moral citizens.
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This article was written for Opera Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning Guide for the Verdi Requiem.
Research Interests:
This article was written for Opera Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning Guide for the Verdi Requiem.
Research Interests:
This article was written for Opera Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning Guide for the Verdi Requiem.
Research Interests:
This article was written for Opera Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning Guide to provide context on the opera to Philadelphia-area schoolchildren.
Research Interests:
This article was written for Opera Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning Guide to provide context for the opera for Philadelphia-area schoolchildren.