How to end a war: The living and the dead working together in baroque opera

About the event

The history of opera is charged with urgent, daring, and compassionate strategies that were often deployed to soften hard hearts.

It had the power to create and propose unexpectedly evolving structures of equality and reconciliation, with five generations of European artists who fed the imaginary of civil societies with seeds of democratic possibilities.

Enlightenment operas by Rameau, Mozart, and Handel prophetically argued for the future of democracy in a European context, which did in fact arrive in the coming decades.

This lecture will call out specific operas from the 18th century to address working projects now being proposed by contemporary artists that span cultures, histories, and futures.

Speaker

Professor Peter Sellars, University of California, Los Angeles

Professor Peter Sellars has gained international renown for his ground-breaking and transformative interpretations of classics, advocacy of 20th-century and contemporary music, and collaborative projects.

His work illuminates the power of art as a means of moral expression and social action. Sellars is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA.

He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture, the Gish Prize, the Polar Music Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Chair

Professor Maria Delgado, Central School of Speech and Drama

About our Lecture programme

Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. This event is part of the Aspects of Art Lectures, first delivered in 1916.