What can artists learn from theatre scholars when it comes to performing historical works on stage today? What can theatre scholars learn from today’s artists when it comes to understanding the works and practices of the past? How is the experience of modern spectators affected by attending performances in historic theatres? And how, aesthetically, do we experience the reconstruction of productions from the remote past?

This collection of essays covers the findings of the research project ‘Performing Premodernity’: an international group of theatre scholars whose work centred on the Drottningholm theatre from 1766: just outside Stockholm, this famous theatre has authentic stage sets and machinery preserved almost in their original eighteenth-century state.

Behind all the essays is a mixture of fascination and dissatisfaction with today’s performances of drama and opera classics, particularly those that take place in historic theatres, and those operating within the so-called Historically Informed Performance movement. Moreover, they reflect a desire to develop and expand the methods traditionally used by theatre historians. And they present a variety of angles on today’s performances in historic theatres and on today’s attempts to revive theatrical practices of the past.

The authors combine academic and artistic research as a way of deepening and nuancing our understanding of eighteenth-century theatre practices. The historical research is set in dialogue with the dramaturgical insights and aesthetic experiences the historians gained from their practical doing in historic spaces. Experimentation with lighting, costumes, stage movement, vocal and instrumental practices, and the flow of energy between performers and spectators led to the investigation of topics that theatre historians otherwise tend to ignore. In turn, this has led the researchers to challenge long-held views of the sites, repertoires, and performance practices of eighteenth-century theatre.

Performing Premodernity’s experimental, practice-based approach accords with the view of the late Enlightenment as what Vincenzo Ferrone has called ‘a real and still unexplored laboratory of modernity’. The second half of the eighteenth century was a time of both wide-ranging artistic innovation and earth-shaking political revolutions; it was a period when ideal and practice, philosophy and art influenced and guided each other to an unprecedented degree. The essays start from the conviction that any attempt at a holistic understanding of the theatrical practices of the time must take these exchanges into account. And that a strictly antiquarian approach that merely tries to establish ‘how it really was’, without considering the utopian dimension of the reforms of people like Rousseau, Gluck, and Mozart, will fail to grasp the impetus and the dynamic, communicative aspect of eighteenth-century theatre. Therefore, several of the essays revolve around the group’s historically informed production of a true ‘avantgarde’ work of the eighteenth century: Pygmalion, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s scène lyrique from 1762. Performing Premodernity’s research-based production premiered at Český Krumlov Castle Theatre in 2015.

The present anthology is essential reading for theatre scholars and musicologists studying eighteenth-century performance as well as for theatre and opera artists concerned with period performance practice.

This article explores the early development of Swedish costume design during the reign of Gustav III (1771-1792). From the beginning of his rule, the Swedish king consciously and actively developed the local cultural scene, funded the Swedish Royal Opera and other institutions, as well as wrote and performed theatrical works himself. He also intervened in the scenography of pieces and was very interested in dress in general, using it often for his political aims. Theatre and dress were not only treated as aesthetic objects, but also as tools for creating a sense of Swedish national identity among the people.

The ‘Swedishness’ of costume design is thus primarily connected to the subjects represented in those initial plays which addressed Swedish themes: historical figures and people from different Swedish regions. On the other hand, both the designers and forms used to create this Swedish design were often imported and adapted from abroad, especially from France and Italy. Using a transnational perspective and material-oriented approach, this study examines certain strategies and milestones in Swedish costume making, highlighting international exchange, but also showing unique cases of adaptation to the local stage.

Since the origins of opera, design of its costumes was always a complex and collaborative endeavour. Etymologically, the word design derives from Latin designare – “mark out, point out; devise; choose, designate, appoint”. In the sixteenth century, this word developed two main senses – “to contrive, plot, intend”, and “to draw, paint, embroider, etc.” – both of which passed on into Italian, French, English etc. In the case of costume design, the two meanings naturally meet in practice, however the original intention and the drawing were often created by various agents in the past. Furthermore, even their carefully crafted design did not necessarily make it to the stage, because it was altered by other members of the theatre company in the process of making. This article will interrogate the design and making process of the costumes at the Opera, who decided what during the process of costume’s becoming, how was this design process controlled by the administration, and how is was shared with other Parisian theatres.

This article offers a new view on ‘period’ or – as we propose to call it – ‘historically informed’ costume. We consider ‘historically informed’ costume a product of a specific mode of creation, but also and especially a process of research, which brings new insights both into the history of costume and performance. After a brief overview of approaches to period costume through the twentieth century, and its use in ‘historically informed performance’, we present a methodology developed through five years of collaboration between costume maker, historian and performers within the research project Performing Premodernity. This methodology employs comparative research of material, visual and textual sources, and making and performing experiments, often in historical spaces. It stresses an experimental and collaborative approach to research and creation, in which each member brings their expertise and way of doing that complement one another. Furthermore, the methodology promotes connections between objects – costumes and bodies – which inform each other through the historicity of their practice.

During the 18th century, the French court employed considerable number of people and resources in order create the most brilliant performances, which reflected the monarchs’ power. But who made the costumes for the spectacles, how these people worked, where, how were the costumes distributed and used? And how much did this all cost? Through study of the inventories, costume programs, working sheets and contracts I uncover the actual work on and economy of the costume for court stage.

What can artists learn from theatre scholars when it comes to performing historical works on stage today? What can theatre scholars learn from today’s artists when it comes to understanding the works and practices of the past? How is the experience of modern spectators affected by attending performances in historic theatres? And how, aesthetically, do we experience the reconstruction of productions from the remote past?

This collection of essays covers the findings of the research project ‘Performing Premodernity’: an international group of theatre scholars whose work centred on the Drottningholm theatre from 1766: just outside Stockholm, this famous theatre has authentic stage sets and machinery preserved almost in their original eighteenth-century state.

Behind all the essays is a mixture of fascination and dissatisfaction with today’s performances of drama and opera classics, particularly those that take place in historic theatres, and those operating within the so-called Historically Informed Performance movement. Moreover, they reflect a desire to develop and expand the methods traditionally used by theatre historians. And they present a variety of angles on today’s performances in historic theatres and on today’s attempts to revive theatrical practices of the past.

The authors combine academic and artistic research as a way of deepening and nuancing our understanding of eighteenth-century theatre practices. The historical research is set in dialogue with the dramaturgical insights and aesthetic experiences the historians gained from their practical doing in historic spaces. Experimentation with lighting, costumes, stage movement, vocal and instrumental practices, and the flow of energy between performers and spectators led to the investigation of topics that theatre historians otherwise tend to ignore. In turn, this has led the researchers to challenge long-held views of the sites, repertoires, and performance practices of eighteenth-century theatre.

Performing Premodernity’s experimental, practice-based approach accords with the view of the late Enlightenment as what Vincenzo Ferrone has called ‘a real and still unexplored laboratory of modernity’. The second half of the eighteenth century was a time of both wide-ranging artistic innovation and earth-shaking political revolutions; it was a period when ideal and practice, philosophy and art influenced and guided each other to an unprecedented degree. The essays start from the conviction that any attempt at a holistic understanding of the theatrical practices of the time must take these exchanges into account. And that a strictly antiquarian approach that merely tries to establish ‘how it really was’, without considering the utopian dimension of the reforms of people like Rousseau, Gluck, and Mozart, will fail to grasp the impetus and the dynamic, communicative aspect of eighteenth-century theatre. Therefore, several of the essays revolve around the group’s historically informed production of a true ‘avantgarde’ work of the eighteenth century: Pygmalion, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s scène lyrique from 1762. Performing Premodernity’s research-based production premiered at Český Krumlov Castle Theatre in 2015.

The present anthology is essential reading for theatre scholars and musicologists studying eighteenth-century performance as well as for theatre and opera artists concerned with period performance practice.

Dotlačilová discusses the key, but routinely overlooked, visual means of representing character on stage: costume. Her close analysis of Louis-René Boquet’s designs for costumes for Jean-Georges Noverre’s ballet d’action Médée et Jason (1763) underlines how much the new aesthetic trends of the century focus on the human body and its movement. Costume designs show Medea’s links to the early operatic witch, in contrast to the humanized Medea who emerges some decades later. The sartorial signs of the underworld in the early versions—mainly bats and magical symbols—became less visible in Boquet’s later designs. The 1791 design presented Medea in ‘her role of princess, woman, and mother’.

The long eighteenth century was a turbulent period in France, many crucial reforms in society, politics and art challenging the established order of the ancien régime. This battle took place on the theatrical stage as well and materialized in the approach to costume. The present thesis examines the development of theatrical costume – especially for opera and ballet – during this period, with particular focus on the so-called costume reform. Who were the main personalities of the reform and what were their arguments? How did it relate to the artistic and social context of the period? And most importantly: how did the new ideas materialize in practice? In order to explore these issues, the work of Louis-René Boquet (1717–1814), the leading costume designer of the French court and the Paris Opéra, a collaborator of the fairground theatres and the reform choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre, is used as the main reference point.

In accordance with recent theoretical approaches to costume research, formulated for instance by Aoife Monks, Anne Verdier, Donatella Barbieri and Veronica Isaac, costume is regarded as a specific object within theatrical practice, and as a crucial agent in the production of the body on stage. This helps to define eighteenth-century costume as a crossroads where aesthetic, social, dramaturgical and physical requirements met and negotiated. Drawing on a wealth of textual, visual and material evidence, the methodology applied in the research combines approaches from material culture studies and theatre studies, including practice as research, connecting aesthetic theory with the analysis of performance and sartorial practices.

The thesis is divided into two parts; the first part investigates mainly the theoretical discourse around costume, and the second part focuses on the making and agency of the costume in the context of theatrical practice, particularly at the French court, at the Paris Opéra and in Stuttgart, investigating the development of the reform through Boquet’s work. Two concepts of costume are defined and discussed, one driven by the ‘aesthetics of propriety’, which includes the (courtly) social proprieties of dress within the concept of verisimilitude; another driven by ‘aesthetics of truthfulness’, which views the stage as a tableau, therefore requiring a depiction of dress from different periods and locations similar to that in paintings, but also a costume that is adapted to the dramatic situations of the characters. The latter defines the movement of the reform. However, this thesis suggests that we should distinguish between two phases of the reform: a moderate ‘first wave’ (1750s–1770s) and a more radical ‘second wave’ (from c.1783). Focusing particularly on the pioneering ‘first wave’, and investigating costume strategies for various genres, themes and characters, this study shows how the first reformers negotiated with the older conventions and changing fashions, how they insisted on the specificity of the theatrical costume, and the extent to which the practices of the popular stages influenced those of the serious genres. Boquet’s work, previously considered conventional or ‘unreformed’, is shown to embody the different stages and issues of the reform: a unique example of the dynamic development of costume in the second half of the eighteenth century.