Backstage interactions: Opera, science, and the struggle to govern listening in Barcelona (1873-1879)

Opera and science shared spaces, actors, and audiences in late nineteenth-century Barcelona. The same bourgeois ears that were moved by Rossini’s melodies at the Liceu Theatre also attended scientific lectures on acoustics at the Atheneum. Those who listened to the newly imported phonograph at public exhibitions later analysed harmonies at the Wagner Society. Moreover, during a turbulent period for the city’s social landscape, when different factions struggled for power, listening also became a matter of dispute. Competing political factions within Barcelona’s industrial bourgeoisie mobilised different discourses and practices around musical listening, to reinforce their social and political identities and fight for the domain over the city’s scenarios and lecture halls.

In this Work in Progress (WiP) seminar, Tasio Rodrigo examines the aesthetic, scientific, and socio-political construction of these listening discourses and practices, during the early introduction of Wagnerian music in Barcelona (1873-1879). By approaching hearing and the ear as politically contested constructs, this framework brings scientific and aesthetic practices and discourses into dialogue, illuminating their social interactions. It shows how the arguments developed in scientific contexts were reflected in aesthetic debates, and vice versa. Both fields relied on overlapping rhetorics, concepts, and similar techno-corporeal metaphors to discuss hearing and the ear.

Commentator: Agustí Nieto-Galan (UAB)

Tasio Rodrigo is a musicologist (University of Salamanca) and a PhD student at the Institute for the History of Science. His research interests lie in the historical intersections between music and science.

If you are interested in reading the entire text in advance —highly recommended, since the WiP seminar format presupposes prior reading— you can request it from Tasio.Rodrigo@uab.cat or Laia.Torres.Casas@uab.cat

Remember that you can bring your lunch on site, as we will have a lunch-seminar format, rigorous and informal at the same time.