A Typology of Western Music and Theatre Activity in South-East Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea Region in Premodern Times (16th–19th Centuries)

This chapter provides an overall picture of theatrical and musical activity of western origin in south-east Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean from the 16th to the 19th centuries, focusing on religious theatre in the archipelagus, Italian opera on the Ionian Islands as well as ambulant ensembles of prose theatre (mainly Greek) and amateur performances. The investigation focuses on cities such as Constantinople, Odessa, Bucharest, Jassy, Smyrna, Alexandria and islands such as Crete, Corfu, Zante, Chios, Naxos and Cyprus. Moreover, the significant role of translations of libretti by Pietro Metastasio is discussed as well as the activity of Giuseppe Donizetti, who introduced western music to the Ottoman court.

Ta’zie (Religious Theatre) vs. Noruz (the New Year and its Rituals)

Above and beyond a legitimate concern with preserving intangible cultural “treasures” and “masterpieces,” what are the extra-heritage issues that tend to slip beneath UNESCO’S applications for recognition and listing? Through an examination of recent projects presented by Iran, the author proposes to carry out a modest ethnography that addresses the meaning of these applications, ethnography being in the words of Clifford Geertz (Geertz 1983: 152), “an enterprise […] whose aim is to render obscure matters intelligible by providing them with an informing context.”

Religious Theatre in America

Once upon a time all theatrical performances in Western Europe were religious in impetus and expression. Professional directors and stage managers of the Middle Ages traveled to such towns as Mons and Valenciennes to stage elaborate productions upon specially constructed platforms equipped with trapdoors and other devices to achieve the most spectacular effects. An English king journeyed to York and posted himself and his retinue on a street in order to witness a segment of that city's famous cycle of plays—from Creation to Christ s passion —performed upon a wagon.