Juliane Riepe brought us some nice presents from Halle:
chocolates filled with beer-marzipan and two treasures for our library.

2014 started with the visit of Juliane Riepe in Vienna for an intensive workshop, especially abut one fact brought to light by John’s research in Modena and Riepe’s work on the operas performed in Bonn: We have to distinguish between two repertories (although there is a certain intersection between them): operas that were really performed at the Bonn theatre on the one hand, and the elector’s collection on the other.

That raises a lot of new questions: Was there a separate collection owned by the theatre? Where did it came from and, almost more importantly, where had it gone? What was the basis of the theatre’s repertory in 1789, when it reopened? Of which kind was the relation between court and theatre? Was the latter more autonomous than we supposed it to be? How have theatre and court music been related? And what about the purchase of music for the theatrical performances and/or the electoral library?

Let’s draw some first conclusions about the last 17 months: There still remain a lot of questions to be answered and some archives to be visited: Elisabeth’s work on the material in Vienna, especially for her dissertation, is not yet finished; John is going to return to Modena, Elisabeth to the Rhineland; and in autumn we plan to work in the Biblioteca Estense together.

Because of our intensive work on the sources in Italy, Austria and Germany we now have a quite detailed picture of them. We discovered a lot of fascinating facts, connections and stories, and now it is time to share them with you…