We warmly congratulate our fellow colleague Gero Toegl on the successful defense of his PhD thesis “The Bayreuth Enterprise 1845-1914” on 15 January, 2015.(supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christopher Balme)
In his thesis, Gero (who joined the GTH project in 2010), investigates the world-famous Bayreuth Theatre Festival as a key institution in the history of late 19th century opera and theatre since its foundation in 1876. Following recent scholarship on global history, transnational theory and institutional historicism, Gero demonstrates that Wagner’s network relied on processes of international circulation, the construction of a specific transnational public sphere, and a web of worldwide operating institutions, and that it negotiated personal ties as well as economic, ideological, and artistic capital.
