Overview
Rebecca Harris-Warrick brings to her primary specialization in the field of French baroque music an interdisciplinary background in musicology, performance, dance history, and literature. Her research also extends beyond the Baroque into later periods of operatic history, particularly in France, and she has prepared critical editions of theatrical works by Gaetano Donizetti and Jean-Baptiste Lully. In addition to her musicological work she has performed as a baroque flutist and studied both renaissance and baroque dance. As a result, much of her scholarly work has been informed by her interests in performance and performance practice and, conversely, some of her research has been brought into practice on the stage, such as in productions of operas at the Boston Early Music Festival. In 2003 she organized performances at Cornell and the Eastman School of Music of Lully’s Carnaval Mascarade (first performed at the Paris Opera in 1675) and in 2007 a program entitled “Harlequin’s Capers,” which included the first performance since 1734 of a ballet from the stage of the Théatre Italien in Paris, Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Pygmalion.
Rebecca Harris-Warrick is currently a member of the editorial boards for the Les Oeuvres complétes de Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, and has served on the Council of the American Musicological Society (1995-98), the Board of Directors and Editorial Board of the Society of Dance History Scholars (1993-99), and as Associate Editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal (1998-2003). Her research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1985, 1991), the Mellon Foundation (1989), and the Guggenheim Foundation (2001).
At Cornell Rebecca Harris-Warrick teaches music history for non-majors (e.g., Mozart to Minimalism, Opera) and music majors (survey of Western music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque), as well as graduate musicology seminars, freshman writing seminars, and practical courses in early dance. She served for six years as Director of Graduate Studies in Music, and chaired the department from 2002 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2008.
Research Focus
- Primary specialization in the field of French Baroque music
- Interdisciplinary background in musicology, performance, dance history, and literature
- Her research also extends beyond the Baroque into later periods of operatic history, particularly in France.
- In addition to her musicological work she has performed as a Baroque flutist and studied both Renaissance and Baroque dance.
Publications
Books
RHW and Carol G. Marsh. Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV: “Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
RHW and Bruce Alan Brown, eds. The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro Magri and his World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press: 2005.
Principles of the Harpsichord by Monsieur de Saint Lambert, translated and edited by Rebecca Harris-Warrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Editions
Critical edition, with James R. Anthony, of the ballet Les Amours déguisés as part of Les Oeuvres complètes de Jean-Baptiste Lully, Ser. I, Vol. 6. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2001.
Critical edition of the opera La Favorite for the Donizetti Critical Edition, Roger Parker and Gabriele Dotto, Coordinating Editors. Milan: Casa Ricordi, 1997. La Favorite: Introduction, Sources, and Critical Commentary. (The English language version of materials published only in Italian in the full score.) Milan: Casa Ricordi, 1999.
Articles
“Ballet, Pantomime, and the Sung Word in the Operas of Rameau.” Coll’astuzia, col giudizio: Essays in Honor of Neal Zaslaw. Ed. Cliff Eisen. Ann Arbor: Steglein Publishing, 2009, 31-61.
“Lucia Goes to Paris: A Tale of Three Theaters.” Stage Music and Cultural Transfer: Paris, 1830-1914. Ed. Annegret Fauser and Mark Everist. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009, 195-227.
“Ballet.” Cambridge Companion to 18th-Century Opera. Ed. Anthony R. DelDonna and Pierpaolo Polzonetti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 99-111.
“La danse dans Cadmus et Hermione.” Cadmus et Hermione de Jean-Baptiste Lully et Philippe Quinault: Livret, études et commentaires. Ed. Jean Duron. Wavre, Belgium: Mardaga, 2008, 231-50.
“L’Opposition Sallé-Camargo: Réalité ou fantasme?” Joint article with Nathalie Lecomte published in Marie Sallé, danseuse du XVIIIe siècle: Esquisses pour un nouveau portrait (proceedings from conference in Nantes, France, June 2007). Annales de l’Association pour un Centre de Recherche sur les Arts du Spectacle aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, vol. 3 (2008), 49-64.
“Lully’s On-Stage Societies.” Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu. Ed. Victoria Johnson, Jane F. Fulcher, and Thomas Ertman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 53-71.
“Dance and Representation in the Operas of Lully.” ‘L’Esprit Français’ und die Musik Europas (Festschrift in honor of Herbert Schneider). Ed. Michelle Biget-Mainfroy and Rainer Schmusch. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2007, 208-18.
“Staging Venice.” Cambridge Opera Journal 15/3 (2003).
“‘Reading’ Ballet.” Performing Verdi. Ed. Alison Latham and Roger Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Articles “Ballet” (section I, 17th-18th c.) and “Dance” (section I,4, mid- to late Baroque, and I/5, 18th c.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition. London: Macmillan Publishers, Ltd.: 2001.
“The Phrase Structures of Lully’s Dance Music.” Lully Studies. Ed. John Hajdu Heyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 32-56.
“‘Toute danse doit exprimer, peindre…’: Finding the Drama in the Operatic Divertissement.” Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis 23 (1999). Ed. Peter Reidemeister. Winterthur, Switzerland: Amadeus Verlag, 2000, 187-210.
“Editing Lully’s Ballets: Problems and Responses.” Quellenstudien zu Jean-Baptiste Lully. Ed. Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 1999, 23-47.
“Recovering the Lullian Divertissement.” Dance and Music in French Baroque Theatre: Sources and Interpretations. Study Texts No. 3, ed. Sarah McCleave. London: Institute of Advanced Musical Studies, King’s College London, 1998, 55-80.
“From Score into Sound: Questions of Scoring in Lully’s Ballets.” Early Music 20/3 (1993), 354-62.
“The Parisian Sources of Donizetti’s French Operas: The Case of La Favorite.” L’Opera Teatrale di Gaetano Donizetti: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studio 1992 . Ed. Francesco Bellotto. Bergamo: Assessorato allo Spettacolo, 1993, 77-92.
“Interpreting Pendulum Markings for French Baroque Dances.” Historical Performance 6/1 (1993), 9-22.
“Paris,” sections 1-3 (the operatic history of Paris up until the French Revolution). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1992. Vol. 3, 855-65.
“A Few Thoughts on Lully’s hautbois.” Early Music 18/1 (1990), 97-106.
“Contexts for Choreographies: Notated Dances Set to the Music of J.-B. Lully.” Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), Actes du Colloque/Kongreßbericht, Saint-Germain-en-Laye–Heidelberg 1987. Ed. Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1990, 233-55.
“Ballroom Dancing at the Court of Louis XIV.” Early Music 14/1 (1986), 40-9.
Liner Notes
Lully, Psyché, perf. by Boston Early Music Festival, Paul O’Dette and Steven Stubbs, music directors. Cpo 777 367-2 (RadioBremen), 2008. RHW’s “Notes on the Dances in Psyché” published in the accompanying booklet, 44-46.
Lully, Thésée, perf. by Boston Early Music Festival, Paul O’Dette and Steven Stubbs, music directors. Cpo 777 240-2 (RadioBremen), 2007. RHW’s “Notes on the Dances in Lully’s Operas” published in the accompanying booklet, 33-35.
Oboe band music from the court of Louis XIV, performed by the London Oboe Band. Works by Jean-Baptiste Lully (excerpts from Les Nopces de village, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and Cadmus et Hermione) and André Danican Philidor (excerpts from Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos). Harmonia Mundi France, HMU 907122. Released 1995.
Donizetti, La Favorite, edizione critica a cura di Rebecca Harris-Warrick. Perf. by Scalchi, Canonici, Massis, Surjan, chorus and orchestra of the Milan RAI, cond. D. Renzetti. Ricordi Fonit Cetra, RFCD 2015 (1993). RHW’s “Notes on the Critical Edition” published in the accompanying booklet.