Music theatre preservation: a bridge between musicology and archival science

The subject of this research is Music Theatre [MT] preservation in archival contexts. MT is a synthesis of various arts (music, theatre, dance) combining various documents (music, settings, movement, text, electroacoustics, images, props, costumes, light, computer-dedicated software), and is a result of a close collaborative practice between composers and performers. Most MT documentation remains scattered over various sources or lost, obscuring the performance of improvised hypothetical components, alongside issues of idiosyncratic or non-standard notations, coupled with obsolescence and deterioration of carriers (e.g., tapes) and a continued lack of systematisation. All this hinders study and dissemination. The importance of reflecting on the key constraints encountered in recovering MT works incorporating different means represents an enduring challenge for archival studies. Furthermore, MT still lacks representation in narratives of Western music history due to the difficulties of understanding and consolidating such collaborative practices. Archiving MT works implies describing interactions, interventions and interpretations by creators, performers, musicologists, users and archivists. An in-depth understanding of MT allows composers and performers to solidify the founding concepts of this genre and create new performance, production and pedagogical challenges. This project aims to couple conceptual practices and methodologies between musicology and archival science to preserve MT works within a holistic perspective. In this crossing of knowledge, musicology contributes to grasping users’ needs, and ontological and epistemological issues related to MT, while archival science contributes to standardising collaborative practices facilitating the works’ systematisation. This approach will assist archivists’ work regarding the processing of existing documentation in creations involving collaborative practices, with particular impact on institutions dealing with performance preservation.