Professor Sarah Hibberd

My research interests focus primarily on nineteenth-century musical culture, especially opera (French, Italian) and other forms of music theatre including melodrama and ballet, in Paris and London. My AHRC-funded project, French Opera and the Revolutionary Sublime, analyses the cataclysmic denouements of a series of works performed in Paris between 1789 and 1830, in the context of France's evolving relationship with revolution. It pays particular attention to staging technologies (including lighting and special effects) and audiences' sensory and emotional experiences. My new Leverhulme Major Research Project examines the activities of the 'Puritani Quartet' in London and Paris during the 1830s and 40s, with a particular focus on the bass, Luigi Lablache, and explores singer networks and mobility in nineteenth-century Europe.