Neumann Lecture Series brings opera scholar Roger Parker to campus

Roger Parker, widely published Italian opera scholar, will be on the University of Richmond campus February 12 through February 14 to lecture on several occasions:   

Editing the Music of Giacomo Puccini Panel Discussion
Tuesday, February 12
4:30-5:30 p.m., Choral Room (127), Booker Hall of Music
Panel discussion with Dr. Parker, Dr. Gabriele Dotto (Michigan State University Press) and Dr. Linda Fairtile (University of Richmond), on the topic of editing the music of Giacomo Puccini.  For Richmond music students and the community. 

“Puccini’s Manon Lescaut: La Scala, 1930”  
Tuesday, February 12
7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall, Booker Hall of Music  
This lecture will focus on a recording of Manon Lescaut by a conductor who had worked closely with Puccini, exploring whether recordings offer credible evidence that should be taken into consideration when a music edition is prepared.   For campus and the community. 

"Opera Histories"
Thursday, February 14
4:00 p.m., Camp Concert Hall. 
Lecture for all Richmond students. 

Dr. Parker studied at both Goldsmiths’ College and King’s College in London, and he is currently Thurston Dart Professor of Music at King’s College.  His books include Giacomo Puccini: La bohème (1986, with Arthur Groos), Leonora’s Last Act: Essays in Verdian Discourse (1997), and Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio (2007).  He has prepared critical editions of operas by Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini. 

The Neumann Lectures on Music are named in honor of longtime faculty member Frederick “Fritz” Neumann (1907-1994).  Appointed to Richmond’s music faculty in 1955, Fritz taught violin, founded the University Symphony and was concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony. He retired in 1978. From the mid 1960s, he occupied himself principally with the research of authentic performance practice, particularly of the seventeenth and eighteen centuries, a career that was furthered by grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The American Musicological Society presented Neumann with the prestigious Otto Kinkeldey Award in 1987 for the volume Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart. 

The department invites one distinguished music scholar each year to address the university community, the scholarly community and to spend time with our students.  These lectures offer a further opportunity to expand our vision of the University of Richmond as a location for serious dialogue about music, the arts and society.  

Posted January 15, 2008