AMS-NE: New England Chapter of the AMS

AMS-NE Spring Chapter Meeting May 2, 2015 Sudler Hall Yale University 9:45-10:15  Refreshments and Registration Morning Session 10:15   Welcome 10:20   Assimilation, Gypsies, and Jews in Meyerbeer's  Ein Feldlager in Schlesien                    Laura Stokes (Indiana University / Brown University) ABSTRACT: Giacomo Meyerbeer was appointed General Music Director of the Berlin Royal Opera in June 1842. The recently ascended king Friedrich Wilhelm IV—who had an ambitious program to remake Berlin as a European cultural center—persuaded Meyerbeer to return after an absence of over three decades. Meyerbeer, who was Jewish, was appointed music director of the Royal Opera at a time of political challenge for Prussia’s Jewish community: that same year, Friedrich Wilhelm IV proposed that the Jewish community be separated into its own Estate, attempting to counter decades of assimilati...