The art of performance and the paradox of Diderot: Bringing the musician closer to the actor and to the interpretive practice(s) of theatrical arts

Abstract

Denis Diderot, a prominent figure of the eighteenth-century French Enlightenment and the main organizer of the Encyclopédie, presents in his Paradox of acting an important reflection about the craft of the actor, the attitude he should take to represent different roles and the social function of his performance. As opposed to Rousseau and the romantics who succeeded him in the XIX century, Diderot argues that a good actor should be guided by an attitude of emotional detachment rather than by compulsive raptures of feelings and passions. Without intending to eclipse the specific differences existing between the profession of the performer and that of the actor, their affinities are evident in the domain of performance, as well as in the attitude and social role both adopt on the stage to render a work previously conceived and encoded. Considering that the performative character of musical practice –exceptions apart– is still relegated in school music teaching, we focus on the importance of the performance elements in relation to bodily categories such as appearance, mimicry and body language. In short, in the year of the tercentennial of Diderot, our aim is to show that the theatrical arts have something important to contribute to the understanding and improvement of musical performance.