{"id":465,"date":"2017-04-10T10:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T10:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/?p=465"},"modified":"2017-04-10T10:00:59","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T10:00:59","slug":"musical-re-workings-of-lalla-rookh-staged-in-berlin-spontinis-lalla-rookh-nurmahal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/2017\/04\/10\/musical-re-workings-of-lalla-rookh-staged-in-berlin-spontinis-lalla-rookh-nurmahal\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical re-workings of Lalla Rookh staged in Berlin: Spontini\u2019s Lalla Rookh & Nurmahal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lalla<\/a><\/p>\n

Similar to other libraries visited during the course of project ERIN the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB) does not curate a dedicated Moore collection. However, the library is in possession of a unique selection of sources for musical re-workings of Lalla Rookh; these include nineteenth-century libretti and printed music. These sources, together with an account, costume designs and illustrations pertaining to the 1821 Berlin premiere of Spontini\u2019s Lalla Rookh (1821), housed at the Lipperheidesche Kost\u00fcmbibliothek, are valuable, offering much to Moore scholarship, and to the wider contextualisation of musical re-workings of Lalla Rookh. An overview of these sources, with a specific focus on Spontini\u2019s Lalla Rookh (1821) and Nurmahal (1822) will be the subject of a conference paper that I will jointly present with Dr Sarah McCleave at the upcoming Lalla Rookh Bicentenary Symposium at Marsh\u2019s Library, Dublin on 27 May 2017 (the full symposium announcement and programme is included at the end of this blog).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gaspare [Luigi Pacifico] Spontini (1774-1852) was appointed to the position of Kapellmeister and Musical Director at Berlin State Opera in 1820 by the Prussian Monarch Karl Wilhelm III. Spontini\u2019s two-act opera with ballet called Nurmahal is based on The Light of the Haram; the fourth and final tale from Moore\u2019s Lalla Rookh. Nurmahal was first performed in Berlin on 27 May 1822; exactly five years after the first publication of Lalla Rookh was issued. A selection of extant concert programmes, housed at the SBB\u2019s Manuscripts Reading Room (Handschriften-Lesessal, Potsdamer Stra\u03b2e), documents 18 Berlin performances of the opera with ballet, which took place between the years 1822 and 1824. An excerpt from the concert programme for the first Berlin performance of
\nNurmahal is transcribed below.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontag, den 27. May 1822. \/ Im Opernhause. \/ zum Erstenmale: \/ Nurmahal, \/ oder: \/
\nDas Rosenfest von Caschmir. \/ Lyrisches Drama in 2 Abtheilungen, nach dem englischen
\nGedicht Lalla Rukh, des Th. Moore, \/ mit Ballets. Musik von Spontini.\u201d<\/p>\n

This research trip was kindly and generously funded by the Keats-Shelly Association of America, Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Research Grant 2017.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Special Collections, McClay Library, QUB<\/p>\n

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin http:\/\/staatsbibliothek-berlin.de\/en\/ <\/a><\/p>\n

Lipperheidesche Kost\u00fcmbibliothek\u00a0http:\/\/www.smb.museum\/en\/museums-institutions\/kunstbibliothek\/libraries\/lipperheide-costume-library.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Lalla Rookh Bicentenary Symposium –<\/strong>
\nMarsh\u2019s Library, Dublin | 27 May 2017<\/strong>
\n27 May 2017 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Thomas Moore\u2019s epic oriental poem, Lalla Rookh. Dubbed \u201cthe cream of the copyrights\u201d by its publisher, Thomas Longman, the work was an immediate commercial success, selling out six editions within six months of its initial publication. Longmans would eventually publish almost 100,000 copies of the work, including editions illustrated by prominent artists such as John Tenniel and Daniel Maclise. Lalla Rookh has enjoyed a rich cultural afterlife, with parts of the work set to music by Robert Schumann, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Anton Rubenstein, and numerous theatrical adaptations taking inspiration from Moore\u2019s writing. A major reference point in the genre of Romantic Orientalism, the work has maintained a prominent position in scholarly accounts of the poetry of the Regency period, and its depictions of the dangers of political demagoguery and appeals for religious tolerance have a powerful and durable resonance. Lalla Rookh Bicentenary Symposium commemorates this anniversary by bringing together a range of national and international scholars to present current research on Moore and Lalla Rookh at Marsh\u2019s Library, Dublin, where Moore completed research for his debut poetic collection, Odes of Anacreon.<\/p>\n

Register for the symposium (general: \u20ac20 | student\/unwaged: \u20ac10): https:\/\/ www.eventbrite.com\/e\/lalla-rookh-bicentenary symposium-tickets-33390338401<\/a><\/p>\n

Programme<\/strong>
\n0930-1000 Registration
\n1000-1100 Panel 1: Lalla Rookh & Music
\nSarah McCleave & Tr\u00edona O\u2019Hanlon (Queen\u2019s University Belfast):
\n\u201cSpontini\u2019s Lalla R\u00fbkh and the Subsequent Response of European Composers to Thomas Moore\u2019s Lalla Rookh\u201d<\/p>\n

Anja Bunzel (Maynooth University): \u201cThe Sublime Genius: Nineteenth-Century Nationalism in the Peri by Robert Schumann and Thomas Moore\u201d<\/p>\n

1100-1130 Tea & Coffee<\/p>\n

1130-1230 Panel 2: Lalla Rookh & Literature
\nJustin Tonra (National University of Ireland Galway): \u201cThe Bibliographic Problem of Lalla Rookh\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel S. Roberts (Queen\u2019s University Belfast): \u201cOriental Artifice in Lalla Rookh\u201d<\/p>\n

1230-1345 Lunch<\/p>\n

1345-1445 Panel 3
\nJane Moore (Cardiff University): \u201cThomas Moore\u2019s Songs\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Caraher (Belfast): \u201cFrom Lalla Rookh to \u2018Larry O\u2019Rourke\u2019: Thomas Moore and James Joyce\u201d<\/p>\n

1445-1515 Tea & Coffee<\/p>\n

1515-1615 Panel 4
\nUna Hunt (Dublin Institute of Technology): \u201cThomas Moore, Drawing Room Entertainer or Rebel Songster?\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthew Campbell (University of York): \u201cPoetry and the \u2018Cause of Tolerance\u2019: Moore, Ferguson, Mangan\u201d<\/p>\n

1615-1630 Closing Remarks<\/p>\n

This event is organised by Justin Tonra, with the assistance of Matthew Campbell, Brian Caraher, Sarah McCleave, and Sean Ryder (NUI Galway). The symposium is generously supported by the School of Humanities, National University of Ireland Galway, and by Marsh\u2019s Library.<\/p>\n

For further enquiries, please contact the organiser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Justing Tonra, Lecturer in English, School of Humanities, National University of Ireland Galway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Similar to other libraries visited during the course of project ERIN the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB) does not curate a dedicated Moore collection. However, the library is in possession of a unique selection of sources for musical re-workings of Lalla Rookh; these include nineteenth-century libretti and printed music. These sources, together with an account, costume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa93ax-7v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/erin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}