Theater of Masks

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

Theater and opera thrive by nature on the play of (double) masking – on disguise, deception, and dramaturgically effective shifts of identity. In Handel’s operas Giulio Cesare, Ariodante, Alcina, and Deidamia, masquerade acquires a central dramaturgical function: it becomes the driving force of the plot and simultaneously a medium of aesthetic and social reflection. These works explore questions of desire and cross-dressing, of voice, habitus, and gender performance, of social role models and their transformations, of seduction, power, and metamorphosis.

The symposium places the many forms of dissimulation in Handel’s operas at the center and relates them to the tradition of courtly masquerade and the English masque of Handel’s time.