Joint UMAG Programme - A morning at the opera with Dr. Giorgio Biancorosso

Date :
Sat, 7 Oct, 2017
Time :
11:00am – 1:00pm
Venue :
1/F, Fung Ping Shan Building, UMAG, HKU
Cost :
$100 Member and Non-member; Free for Taichung trip participants and students with valid ID
Enquiries :
Rose Hofmann at [email protected] or 9280-8301

The second of the four "music dramas" that make up the Ring of the Nibelung, Die Walkure weaves utterly compelling music around the haunting story of the Valkyries. As in the Norse sagas on which Wagner drew for his text, in the Ring the Valkyries are "angels of life and death." Their intervention in the life of the all-too-human heroes of Wagner's epic is shocking and all-encompassing. But their main claim to glory lies in their role in the life of the cycle's central character, and subject of its third segment: Siegfried. In this lecture, Biancorosso will introduce to the audience to the difference between "music drama" and "standard" opera and retell the endless fascinating story of how Die Walkure got written.
Opera lovers and Wagner Fans are most welcome!

Resource Person:
Dr. Giorgio Biancorosso Associate Professor in Music, and the Director of the Society of fellows in the Arts and Humanities, The University of Hong Kong. Biancorosso studied music and film studies at the University of Rome and King's College London, before moving to Princeton University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in musicology in 2002.
He is the author of Situated Listening: The Sound of Absorption in Classical Cinema (Oxford University Press. 2016) as well as a number of studies on film music and opera. Biancorosso is also active in Hong Kong as a music programmer and curator.