Meet the Fellow: Dr Annelies Andries
Gender in Translation: Bavarian Translations of French Opera, 1800-1825
Dr. Annelies Andries from Utrecht University fell in love with opera as a four-year old. Now she is a cultural historian of music investigating how European musical culture developed in the wake of long 19th century military conflicts. During her Junior Fellowship in Bayreuth she had the opportunity to immerse herself in the special atmosphere of the Margravial Opera House and – to enjoy what she calls the “Mensa experience”.
Dr. Annelies Andries and Prof. Dr. Stefan Leible, President of the University of Bayreuth
If you had to explain the research project of your Fellowship to the person you met
in the elevator, how would you describe it?
Anneslies Andries: My project examines historical opera translation as a performed practice. In particular, I am interested in the affective elements of character representations. How do the characters' affective and emotional representations compare between an original and its translation? How do these emotions inform the corporeal performance with regard to vocal techniques, facial and gestural expressions? I interrogate how engaging in the reconstruction of and experimentation with corporeal performance practices of opera deepens and broadens the questions that we can ask of these historical translation practices. The ultimate goal is to better understand how translations function(ed) as sources for negotiating representations of identity between different cultures.
Was there a special moment in your life that made you decide for your research focus?
AA: Broadly speaking, my research field is in opera, which is a genre that I (according to my family) fell in love with as a four-year old. My focus on engaging with performance practice is a more recent development. In the last decades, scholars have increasingly questioned the significance of embodied practices, experiences, and forms of knowledge in studying theatrical and other performances. As an amateur singer and in conversations with musicians, I started wondering whether intellectually engaging with these questions of embodiment and with the relevant sources is enough. How can a corporeal engagement with historical performance--even if it is of course impossible to experience things as they were in the past--open new avenues for academic research into opera and their translations? I also thought it was important to not just go into dialogue with performers, but to explore the possibilities by trying embodied practices out myself and in workshops with fellow researchers, musicians, and students.
What is in your opinion the future of your field? In what way can research in your fieldcontribute to meeting the urgent challenges of our time?
AA: Musicology is developing in all kinds of interesting ways, responding to present-day challenges such as climate change. Yet a topic that has a long history within the field is music's interactions with politics and conflict. This is also the broad theme under which my research falls, as I focus on musical developments in the wake of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1792-1815). Increasingly, research in this area is paying attention to the role of emotions in conflicts, and in turn how music is involved in developing emotives, emotional communities, and causing and healing trauma. Understanding these processes from different perspectives can provide insights into and guidelines for the roles that music and arts can play in tackling challenges that cause conflict, as well as the tools for continuing to critically examine music's use in political contexts.
What was your personal experience during your stay, e.g. what did you like best about the University/
the city of Bayreuth, what surprised you…? What is your favourite spot in Bayreuth or the region?
AA: I had a really wonderful time in Bayreuth. I really enjoyed what I have started to call the "Mensa-experience". I think it is an amazing provision that students and staff have such a large space to meet for lunch and dinner and that there is such a great choice of meals. Besides the fact that it is very convenient not to have to bring one's own lunch, it is a great place for scholars and students to come together and discuss work in a less formal setting. It also makes it easy to meet new colleagues and spontaneously decide to have a conversation over lunch or with a coffee. Much of the scholarly exchange for me happened in or around the Mensa. At Utrecht University, no such space is provided, so for me this was a very positive experience at Bayreuth.
Besides the Mensa, my favourite spot was the Margravial Opera House, as it provides a historical space in which the translation and performance practices that I study took place. As such it offers a physical space that helps one imagine historical situations. I went five times during my stay, in part to feel the space, but also because it has a such a richly documented museum where I always discovered new things.
Have you noticed any differences or similarities between UBT and your home university?
AA: Besides the Mensa, which I mentioned above, the biggest difference is that there is much more flexibility in the development of courses by lecturers. There is no fully fixed curriculum, which allows them to teach the topics that they are researching at that moment. This meant that I could easily be integrated in the teaching activities: I was invited to co-teach a seminar session on historical performance practice and do a workshop on historical opera translation in dialogue with historical acting practices. Thus, I have experienced how enriching such connections between research and teaching can be, as in the process, I have learned a lot from both my musicology and literature studies colleagues and the students. The latter in return enjoyed learning about my opera translation project in a practice-based workshop, and could reflect on how the methods used might inform their own studies and research.
The Fellow
Dr Annelies Andries joined the musicology group at Utrecht University as Lecturer in 2020, following PhD studies at Yale and a postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford. Her research investigates how European musical culture developed in the wake of long-nineteenth-century military conflicts (primarily the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars) drawing on theories from cultural history, trauma and performance studies. She is writing a book on identity formation through opera in Napoleonic France. Her work has been published in Cambridge Opera Journal, Journal of Culture and War Studies, French Historical Studies and others. She is also active as a performance-researcher of nineteenth-century music and writes programme notes for European opera and concert houses.