On Monday 10 February, Prof. Mark Berry shall be presenting on Wagner and Verdi in an event curated specially for the Royal Ballet & Opera’s Wagner Circle.
The Wagner Circle is a philanthropic initiative that brings together Wagner lovers for a series of events each season. With exclusive insights into The Royal Opera’s work, involvement in the Circle serves to deepen knowledge and enjoyment of the one of the most significant figures in opera.
About Mark Berry
Mark Berry read History at the University of Cambridge, continuing there to study for an MPhil and PhD, before being elected in 2001 as a Fellow of Peterhouse, where he remained until 2009, upon his appointment as Lecturer in Music at Royal Holloway. He has lectured on subjects ranging from political culture at Louis XIV’s Versailles to European Marxism and music after 1945. His research has tended to draw upon his interests in both History and Music, as well as upon other disciplines, such as Philosophy, Theology, Art and Architectural History, Theatre Studies, and Literature.
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner’s ‘Ring’ was published by Ashgate in 2006. For his work on Wagner he has received the Prince Consort Prize and the Seeley Medal. He write a number of articles for the Cambridge Wagner Encyclopaedia, published in 2013; they range from short biographical pieces to essays on topics such as 'German History', 'Morality', and 'Politics'. Dr Berry is also co-editor with Professor Nicholas Vazsonyi of The Cambridge Companion to Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen', published in 2020.
Whilst maintaining and furthering his interests in Wagner, subsequent research has also looked back towards the eighteenth century, including treatment of Bach, Mozart, and Haydn, and forward to the twentieth century. After Wagner: Histories of Modernist Music Drama from 'Parsifal' to Nono was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2014. It offers an historical treatment of politics, aesthetics, and music-drama from Parsifal onwards, whose concerns include Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, Luigi Dallapiccola, Hans Werner Henze, Luigi Nono, and operatic staging. Read more.
