Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Word count, which should be calculated electronically, must be stated accurately below.
For details of what is included in the word count, and penalties incurred by exceeding the word count
limit, please consult the coursework submission policy in the Faculty handbook.
DECLARATION BY STUDENT
This assignment is entirely my own work. Quotations from secondary literature are indicated by the
use of inverted commas around ALL such quotations AND by reference in the text or notes to the
author concerned. ALL primary and secondary literature used in this piece of work is indicated in the
bibliography placed at the end, and dependence upon ANY source used is indicated at the
appropriate point in the text. I confirm that no sources have been used other than those stated.
I understand what is meant by plagiarism and have signed at enrolment the declaration
concerning the avoidance of plagiarism.
I understand that plagiarism is a serious academic offence that may result in disciplinary
action being taken.
I understand that I must submit work BEFORE the deadline, and that failure to do so will result
in capped marks.
Module Code:
7AAMM009
(e.g. 5AABC123 )
Your assignment may be used as an example of good practice for other students to refer to in
future. If selected, your assignment will be presented anonymously and may include feedback
comments or the specific grade awarded. Participation is optional and will not affect your grade.
Do you consent to your assignment being used in this way? Please tick the appropriate box below.
x
YES NO
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
in terms of its inputs and outputs.1 The function of the technology is credited, rather than the
process that has occurred to achieve this. Using a black box simplifies the understanding of
mediating objects and neglects consideration of their structures and origins. There have long
been calls to open the box in order to explain both the nature of the technological devices
and how they achieve their effects.2 In 1985, literary scholar Friedrich Kittler argued that the
redefinition of the way we understand them.3 This would also help move beyond
technologically determined narratives. Approaching the topic of black boxes from a broader
perspective also helps to reveal how standardisation, where functions and uses become fixed
within interpretation, limits the appreciation of technological development and fluidity. Julia
Kursell, who studies the relationship between music and science, argues that the process of
casting new light to re-explore the ‘functioning’ and non-linear development of technology
should be defined as grey boxing.4 Grey boxing is important as it both seeks to open the black
box to explore how a mediating object works and considers why this has previously been
ignored. Instead of simply removing the box, Kursell’s approach encourages investigation into
1
Langdon Winner, ‘Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the
Philosophy of Technology’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 18.3 (1993),
<https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399301800306>, p. 365.
2
Winner, p. 367.
3
Friedrich A Kittler, Discourse Networks 1800/1900 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990).
Kittler developed the Foucauldian idea of ‘historical a priori’ into ‘technological a priori’ where the
understanding of events and objects is expanded to include what has created it rather than just that it exists.
The focus is placed on a medium and how it has come about.
4
Julia Kursell, ‘A Gray Box: The Phonograph in Laboratory Experiments and Fieldwork, 1900–1920’, in The
Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, ed. by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld (Oxford University Press, 2012)
<https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780195388947-e-007> pp. 192-193.
2
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
After originating in literary studies and then moving into discussions about recording
technology, the idea of grey boxing has become a popular topic within opera studies. A
educator Pierluigi Petrobelli argues that, during the nineteenth century, the visual element of
opera rose in importance, in comparison to the musical and verbal.5 For Petrobelli, developing
stage technology and audience expectations allowed for more interesting and dramatic
staging of works. Attempting to grey box the technology which led to this development
therefore provides a useful insight into how the genre evolved during the period. It also raises
productions. Recent musicological study has produced several texts which start to address
these questions and present interesting ideas about the relative uses, effects and implications
Nineteenth Century Opera provides a useful example as throughout this monograph, the
author explores how theatrical technology contributed to the conception and staging of
operatic works. Her focus is on the ‘historical context and hermeneutic potential of specific
technologies […] rather than their genesis’ and using Richard Wagner as a starting point,
5
Pierluigi Petrobelli, Music in the Theater: Essays on Verdi and Other Composers (Princeton, N.J: Princeton,
N.J : Princeton University Press, 1994).
6
As well as those texts discussed in this essay, other pieces relating to the use and black boxing of operatic
staging technology continue to be published. Some examples include David Trippett, ‘Facing Digital Realities:
Where Media Do Not Mix’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 26.1 (2014), 41–64
<https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954586713000311> and Volume 34, Issue 1 of the Opera Quarterly.
Arman Schwartz, ‘A Note from the Executive Editor’, The Opera Quarterly, 34.1 (2018), 1–2
<https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/kby012>.
3
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
explores the interactions between technology, artistic ambition and human control.7
Throughout the book, Kreuzer draws comparisons between the German composer and his
productions at Bayreuth with examples from French grand opéra. Whilst at times this
enforces the familiar narrative of Wagner verses grand opéra, the approach Kreuzer
Kreuzer explains that Wagner provides a useful starting point for her study suggesting
that ‘no canonic composer tried to control and prescribe productions more energetically’ than
he did.8 The author clearly wants to explore both the roles that staging technology had within
the composer’s productions and the effect it had on his conception of the works themselves.
Wagner’s ambition to achieve a Gesamtkunstwerk, or ‘total work of art’, meant that all
different multimedia dimensions of the operatic experience needed to function as one for a
production to be successful. Rather than the music being dominant, as the composer argued
it had become generally at the time, all elements involved in the production should be united
actions display issues with the consistency of his implementation of this ideology.10 Wagner
hid elements of the production away, such as the orchestra and machinery to work the set
and curtains, and effectively black boxed them. This meant that their effect could be seen and
appreciated, rather than the reality of how they worked. By emphasising the result, rather
than the process, the production seen by the audience does not encourage recognition of the
7
Gundula Katharina Kreuzer, Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera,
(Oakland, California: University of California Press, [2018]), p. 5.
8
Kreuzer, p. 6.
9
Kreuzer, p. 12.
10
Kreuzer, p. 14.
4
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
technology highlights how the composer’s mode of operatic production was heavily
Gesamtkunstwerk is mechanically biased and thus presents another floor in its ideology.11 The
risk of the technological workings of a production being revealed, either through their success
or failure, raises questions about what happens if the illusion on stage is broken. Should the
black box be removed, or even greyed, the ideal of a Gesamtkunstwerk risks collapsing as the
guise of unity and naturalism is broken. If too much consideration is given to how technology
functions, the balance of cause and aesthetic result may become disrupted. The separation
of cause and effect does not provide the technology with necessary credit for the role it had
in delivering the productions. Wagner scholar John Deathridge suggests that Kreuzer’s grey
boxing approach acknowledges how the ‘secret machines and hidden wires [used at Bayreuth
were] themselves actors’ and by making them visible encourages a more rounded
continued through Kreuzer’s choice of title for her book; curtains and steam both provide
physical methods of covering something else and as such form another level of illusion
A further argument Kreuzer presents about Wagner’s use of black boxing is that the
composer was influenced by his lack of technological understanding.14 Due to his reliance on
11
Micaela Baranello, ‘Review - Curtain, Gong, Stream: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera,
by Gundula Kreuzer’, College Music Symposium, 59.1 (2019)
<https://doi.org/10.18177/sym.2019.59.sr.11418>.
12
John Deathridge, back cover review on Gundula Katharina Kreuzer’s Curtian, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian
Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera, 2018.
13
The gong also potentially provides a method of seclusion though the volume of noise it can create.
14
Kreuzer p. 18.
5
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
technicians and artists to realise his visual concepts, the composer became a victim of black
boxing, being only conscious that something was functioning to achieve what he wanted to
see and experience. This explanation suggests that the concept of a black box is not static: it
exists on a spectrum depending on how much is known about its presence. Granularity
appears where a sliding scale is formed between a black and a grey box based on the level of
detail that is known about the technology.15 At one end of the scale, a grey box acknowledges
the functioning of the technology and considers how and why the box has been implemented.
Someone who understood how the technology worked but did not acknowledge why it had
been black boxed would be further down the scale. Therefore, in order to achieve grey boxing,
it is important to recognise that the reasons behind the implementation of the box effect the
interpretation of its presence. Although Wagner did not understand how specific pieces of
technology worked, he was aware of why he was trying to hide them from the audience in
by technological effects because of what they added to the total production, he did not
believe that this ideology was shared by other composers or productions at the time.
Throughout her book, Kreuzer encourages comparisons between the German composer and
examples from grand opéra because of the apparent difference in approach to the presence
and use of advanced staging technology. When Wagner saw Le prophète, he accused the great
sunrise in Act 3 of being an ‘effect without a cause’.16 He suggested that the spectacle, the
15
Jerry R. Hobbs, ‘GRANULARITY’, in Readings in Qualitative Reasoning About Physical Systems, ed. by Daniel S.
Weld and Johan de Kleer (Morgan Kaufmann, 1990), pp. 542–45 <https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-4832-1447-
4.50053-5>. Hobbs’ definition of granularity demonstrates how levels of understanding and explanation can be
divided and combined into different sized sections.
16
Sarah Hibberd, French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009), p. 6.
6
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
first time electric light had been used on stage, was merely a superficial display of technical
ability without having root in the dramatic motivation of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera.17 It
highlighted why, for him, the production did not conform to the requirements of a
technology’ where huge emphasis was placed on the splendour of the scenic designs.18 In his
1838 memoir The American in Paris, John Sanderson explained that the genre acquired its
name because of ‘a greater quantity of thunder and lightning, of pasteboard seas, of paper
snow storm and dragons that spit fire’ than any other theatrical form in Europe.19 These
statements emphasise the importance that the genre placed on visual aesthetic and
technological expertise. Many of the devices and ideas used at the Paris Opéra were
developed from public curiosities (such as dioramas and magic lanterns) and effects used in
melodramas at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The State funding system for the
opera in France meant that theatres regularly had large budgets, and these went towards
developing the equipment and media needed to produce large-scale, visually stunning sets.
One critic wrote of an 1821 production that the Opéra had been transformed into ‘the temple
In her book, French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination, Sarah Hibberd
considers how the genre evolved due to changing political situations and how this led to
developments in audience expectations. Whilst her focus is not to provide a grey boxed
17
Giacomo Meyerbeer, Le prophète, first performed at the Paris Opéra House on the 16th April 1849.
18
Kreuzer, p. 11.
19
John Sanderson, The American in Paris (Philadelphia, 1838), pp. 48-49.
20
Evan Baker, From the Score to the Stage: An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and Staging,
2013. pp. 130-135.
7
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
interpretation of the technology of grand opéra, Hibberd explores how the use of visual
effects has previously been oversimplified in its study. Rather than simply providing a source
of spectacle, they, along with the technology used to create them, have a complex
relationship with State politics and provide a demonstration of power.21 Although members
of the audience may have been familiar with some of the devices used to produce theatrical
effects given their evolution from curios, the technology was not visible on stage and their
function, rather than the process, was the focus. Again, the technology was being black boxed.
This example demonstrates how the Paris Opéra also used the black box of the theatrical
space to demonstrate its authority on the population. Their authority was further enforced
through the employment of a committee to ensure that the production and aesthetic values
provided another source of authority within opera productions. These books combined the
composer’s vision with the libretto and precise instructions about performer’s movements
and technical effects into a document which could them be used to recreate the production
at a later date. The idea of a staging manual is a demonstration of Lydia Goehr’s ‘regulative
concept’ for the musical work.22 Despite opera failing to fulfil many of the requirements of
her imaginary museum of musical works, the establishment of an operatic canon and the
similarities. Kreuzer argues that livrets de mise-en-scène demonstrated how the composers’
sphere of operatic influence became broader both spatially and temporally, echoing the
21
Hibberd p. 6.
22
Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 102.
8
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
ambition of those composing ‘absolute’ music. 23 As such, although the manuals provide
insight into how stage technology worked within productions, they can still benefit from being
studied through a grey boxing approach to understand the reasons behind artistic decisions
and why things were black boxed. Kreuzer and Hibberd explore this idea within their books
through considering the implications of changing power dynamics between composers and
the institutions where they produced their works. The livret de mise-en-scène of Le prophète
included very detailed technical descriptions and highlights why Meyerbeer provides an
important example for considering the implications of using advanced technology on stage.24
where the use of technologies effects enhanced the overall impression of his productions.25
It was not just in Germany and France that the technological progress which occurred
during the nineteenth century effected the evolution of opera. Laura Protano Biggs’
dissertation ‘Musical Materialities in Milan and Liberal Italy at the fine secolo’ provides a
valuable resource for examining the impact and development of technology in Italian opera
houses.26 The text seeks to demonstrate how ‘liberal political imperatives […] were
unmistakably played out on the Milanese stage [and] the material circumstances in which
music was produced and consumed […] tell us the most about the ways music was enmeshed
with liberal era values’.27 Like Hibberd, Protano Biggs does not set out to present a grey boxing
argument, however similarities can be seen in her approach. This is particularly evident in the
chapter on the use of electric lighting at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Here, she suggests how
23
Kreuzer p. 10.
24
Hibberd reference, p. 156.
25
Kreuzer, pp. 11-12.
26
Laura Tiziana Protano Biggs, ‘Musical Materialities in Milan and Liberal Italy at the fine secolo’ (Berkeley,
University of California, 2014) <https://escholarship.org/uc/item/77s5p1q2#main>.
27
Protano Biggs, pp. 2-3.
9
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
the installation of 2800 incandescent light bulbs in the opera house should be interpreted
The electrical installation was momentous, being the biggest of its kind in Europe to
date and provided electric lighting to the auditorium, stage, backstage and public areas. The
technology itself created a veil of mystery around the event. Although by 1883 several cities
were beginning to see the effect of electric lighting, no such developments had occurred in
Milan so the arrival of the bulbs in the theatre became particularly monumental. As well as
the lack of familiarity around the technology providing a degree of black boxing to the event,
the La Scala installation was also unusual that it did not source its power from on-site
generators but from a power station located away from the theatre. Therefore, a further
degree of black boxing arose around the technology. Protano Biggs argues that the
developments in the opera house provided an emblem for the rest of Milanese society to
appreciate the combined spectacle of engineering design and artistic result. Her argument
advances the usual narrative associated with the installation of electric lighting in opera
houses, by focusing beyond the Paris Opéra, to demonstrate how the use and discourse
surrounding the technology at the time had broader political implications.29The relationship
between the implementation of technology and political power shows similarity to Hibberd’s
As Protano Biggs’ case study demonstrates, undertaking a grey boxing method draws
attention to variations and similarities in the use of technology between different European
operatic centres. Another example can be seen in the differences in approach to the use of
28
Protano Biggs, p. 46.
29
Protano Biggs, p. 45.
10
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
the theatrical curtain. The first major topic Kreuzer discusses in her book is the use of the
curtain in opera, which has a long history with changing purposes and symbolism surrounding
it. Wagner’s controlling exploitation of the curtain within his operas highlights his illusionist
agenda in trying to ensure that the audience only sees what he dictates. Kreuzer suggests that
the curtain ‘embodied Wagner’s idea of himself as the master of both the spectacle and its
perception’.30 Through his dimmed auditorium with unobstructed sightlines, Wagner treated
the curtain like the audience’s eyelid, controlling the interaction between the spectacle and
the art. This control reinforces the level of illusion which Wagner wanted to achieve
As the nineteenth century progressed, many composers orchestrated the use of the
curtain in their operas with great detail, clearly notating in the musical score it they should be
raised and lowered. This provided an extra level of complexity to the understanding of the
whole stage as a black box; the spectator does not have the agency to view it until the
composer instructed. Kreuzer argues that the practice of the score dictating when the curtain
moved was initially dominated by Italian composers. She describes Donizetti’s use of the
curtain as both ‘musically resonant and dramatically enticing’ as musical resolution from the
overture could only be established once it had been removed and the action on stage begun.31
For Kreuzer, Rossini’s decision to also raise the curtain during the silence following the
overture created a clear moment of suspense and expectation about the opera. He also used
it to create a divide between the diegetic and non-diegetic music within his works. An example
of this is particularly clear in the 1819 composition Ermione where a chorus of Trojan soldiers’
lament behind the curtain during the overture. Meyerbeer followed Rossini’s idea when
30
Kreuzer p. 95.
31
Kreuzer p. 71.
11
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
composing Le prophéte. He began the entr’acte with a band playing in the wings before being
Until the 1820s it was typical in the French opera house for scene changes to be done
in full view of the audience.33 Leaving the curtain open suggests that scene changes were
spectacles in themselves. Allowing the audience to see the transformations taking place, the
spectators would become more aware of how the technology was working and so begin to
break down the black box. As the century progressed, the curtains were used more frequently
between acts enabling the new sets to be revealed to the waiting audience. The lowering of
the curtain at the end of a performance became more prominent in Italian opera before it did
in the French and German houses. However, this became more common as time progressed.34
Through continuing to raise and lower the curtain, the mysticism of the stage increased, and
piece of staging technology, begins to be greyed through understanding both how it became
established and how it works. As demonstrated through the example of the theatre curtain,
a black box can become more, or less, developed over time. Kreuzer ends her book through
and whether the approach to grey boxing works in the same way by considering
contemporary productions. Many advances in science and engineering have occurred since
the nineteenth century and new devices continue to be used within operas. Key areas of
development can be seen in the use of computers and programmed robotic machines. As
32
Kreuzer p. 71.
33
Hibberd p. 13.
34
Kreuzer, p. 96.
12
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
technology has continued to evolve, so has our interaction and awareness of it. Therefore,
some of the spectacle achieved by the installation of electric lights at La Scala and Wagner’s
steam machine occurred through the audiences’ unfamiliarity with the technology behind it.
Nowadays, the audiences’ familiarity with computers and digital media could mean that more
impressive technological displays have to be made in order to achieve the same spectacle.
2013 marked the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth which was celebrated around the
operatic world with revivals and new productions of his works. One example was at New
York’s Metropolitan Opera with the launch of a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.
paradox of being authentic to the composer’s intentions and yet exploiting the most modern
advances within staging technology.35 This claim to authenticity was justified through the idea
that the production presented the image and effects that Wagner would have wanted had he
been able to exploit the new technology. The composer was apparently dissatisfied with some
of the aesthetic aspects of the original production as nineteenth-century technology had not
been able to realise his vision.36 The production, directed by Robert Lepage, combined
physical and digital media within the complex set which dominated the performance. The
scenic vision centred around a machine constructed with twenty-four individual panels, each
allowing for 360-degree rotation each side of a central axis. These panels moved to form
different shapes throughout the operas to represent different locations. Images were
projected onto the panels using video and static pictures. (See Figure 1). The visual aspects of
35
Kreuzer p. 2.
In an interview with the New York Times, Lepage stated that he wanted to also ‘trip all of [the added political
interference and interpretation] from the 20th century and go back to the 19th century’.
Daniel Wakin J., ‘The Met’s Ring After Oiling’, New York Times, 22 April 2012
<https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/arts/music/robert-lepage-on-ring-cycle-changes-at-metropolitan-
opera.html?searchResultPosition=3> [accessed 28 December 2019].
36
Kreuzer pp. 224 - 226.
13
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
the production received generally negative reviews with The Boston Globe critiquing the
Kreuzer suggests that the use of such a piece of technology could be considered to enhance
Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk concept through its sculptural and architectural look which
technology, Wagner’s ideal of hiding clearly mechanical devices in order to seamlessly provide
dramatic effect is compromised. The black box begins to break down as the audience
In the introduction to her book, Kreuzer is keen to suggest that attempting to grey box
the use of operatic technology provides one method of problematising the narrative that
Wagner was uniquely responsible for all the changes in how operas were staged during the
37
Jeremy Eichler, ‘The Met’s Digital Valhalla’, The Boston Globe, 6 May 2012
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2012/05/05/the-met-digital-valhalla-technology-and-ring-the-met-
digital-valhalla-technology-and-ring/EUGdMLI9JciBqs4TbINhtO/story.html> [accessed 27 December 2019].
38
Kreuzer p. 229.
14
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
nineteenth century. As the cases she provides show, developments in technology were
influencing productions across Europe. Both Hibberd and Protano Biggs demonstrate that
understanding both how technology works and how its presence may previously have been
underacknowledged provides important links between the aesthetics and politics of the
operatic stage. Continuing to develop grey boxing research may provide further insight into
the implications of hierarchy within operatic production and consideration of where black
boxes become a method of establishing political control over the audience. A theatrical
curtain marks a threshold between the stage and the audience as well as between aesthetic
illusion and technical clarity. This divide is based on what the composer, and others involved
reception studies within a grey boxing framework also helps to understand how our
relationships to technology have developed. From the example of Lepage’s production in New
York, it would suggest that there is now a greater expectancy for visually impressive and clever
technology to be exploited within operas. However, continuing to use Kursell’s grey boxing
theory will help to explain how the formation of the black box and the audience’s relationship
technology and understanding how black boxes are still being formed in the opera house
raises important questions about the changing expectations of productions and further study
15
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
Bibliography
Abbate, Carolyn, ‘Sound Object Lessons’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 69.3 (2016), 793–
829
Baker, Evan, From the Score to the Stage : An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and
Staging, 2013
Daniel, Purdy, ‘Digital Humanities and Aesthetic Autonomy: The Afterlife of Friedrich Kittler’s Discourse
Networks’, German Studies Review, 38.1 (2015), 140–143
Eichler, Jeremy, ‘The Met’s Digital Valhalla’, The Boston Golbe, 6 May 2012
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2012/05/05/the-met-digital-valhalla-technology-and-ring-the-
met-digital-valhalla-technology-and-ring/EUGdMLI9JciBqs4TbINhtO/story.html> [accessed 27
December 2019]
Foucault, Michel, Archaeology of Knowledge, Routledge Classics, 2nd ed.. (Hoboken: Taylor and Francis,
2013)
Goehr, Lydia, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992)
Grey, Thomas, ‘Gundula Kreuzer: Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century
Opera’, The Opera Quarterly, 35.3 (2019), 224–35 <https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/kbz022>
Hibberd, Sarah, French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009)
Hobbs, Jerry R., ‘GRANULARITY’, in Readings in Qualitative Reasoning About Physical Systems, ed. by
Daniel S. Weld and Johan de Kleer (Morgan Kaufmann, 1990), pp. 542–45
<https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-4832-1447-4.50053-5>
Kittler, Friedrich A, Discourse Networks 1800/1900 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990)
Kreuzer, Gundula Katharina, 1975- author, Curtain, Gong, Steam : Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-
Century Opera / Gundula Kreuzer. (Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018])
Kursell, Julia, ‘A Gray Box: The Phonograph in Laboratory Experiments and Fieldwork, 1900–1920’, in The
Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, ed. by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld (Oxford University
Press, 2012)
<https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780195388947-e-007>
Petrobelli, Pierluigi, Music in the Theater : Essays on Verdi and Other Composers (Princeton, N.J:
Princeton, N.J : Princeton University Press, 1994)
Pinch, Trevor, Karin Bijsterveld, and Julia Kursell, A Gray Box: The Phonograph in Laboratory Experiments
and Fieldwork, 1900–1920 (Oxford University Press, 2012)
<https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780195388947-e-007>
16
7AAMM009: Issues in Historiography and Criticism Candidate Number: A02268
Protano Biggs, Laura Tiziana, ‘Musical Materialities in Milan and Liberal Italy at the Fine Secolo’ (Berkeley,
University of California, 2014) <https://escholarship.org/uc/item/77s5p1q2#main>
Schwartz, Arman, ‘A Note from the Executive Editor’, The Opera Quarterly, 34.1 (2018), 1–2
<https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/kby012>
Tresch, John, and Emily I. Dolan, ‘Toward a New Organology: Instruments of Music and Science’, Osiris, 28
(2013), 278–89
Trippett, David, ‘Facing Digital Realities: Where Media Do Not Mix’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 26.1 (2014),
41–64 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954586713000311>
Wakin, Daniel, J., ‘The Met’s Ring After Oiling’, New York Times, 22 April 2012
<https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/arts/music/robert-lepage-on-ring-cycle-changes-at-
metropolitan-opera.html?searchResultPosition=3> [accessed 28th December 2019]
Winner, Langdon, ‘Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the
Philosophy of Technology’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 18.3 (1993), 362–78
<https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399301800306>
17