Theater of Masks

Symposium
Academic direction: Prof. Dr. Panja Mücke, Prof. Dr. Stefanie Acquavella-Rauch

Love, power, deception – and no one is who they seem: Handel’s operas thrive on playing with identities. Disguise, role exchange and masquerade drive the action forward while opening up surprising perspectives on gender, desire and social roles. Iridescent constellations of characters emerge in which perception and reality continually diverge, drawing the audience itself into a game that unsettles certainties and opens up new interpretative spaces.

In works such as Giulio Cesare, Ariodante, Alcina and Deidamia, the characters employ seduction, deception and transformation to subvert and question the order of their world. Once the masks fall, questions become visible that profoundly shaped the eighteenth century and continue to resonate today. The symposium explores these fascinating strategies of disguise and offers insights into current musicological perspectives on the music theatre of George Frideric Handel.