(Recensione) Judith I. Haug and Hanna Walsdorf (eds.), Music and Mirrored Hybridities. Cultural Communities Converging in French, German, and Turkish Stage Productions (17th-20th Century), Baden-Baden: Ergon Verlag [Orient-Institut Istanbul, Istanbuler Texte und Studien, 49, 2023. ISBN 978-3-98740-044-5.

The Istanbuler Texte und Studien series published by the Orient-Institut in Istanbul consists of essays exploring the many dimensions of the Ottoman-Turkish world using various approaches: historical, literary, sociological, theological, artistic, urbanistic and, as in this case, musicological. It should be noted that Music and Mirrored Hybridities follows in the footsteps of volumes that over the years have become authoritative works of Musicology. In this specific case, the volume, edited by Judith I. Haug and Hanna Walsdorf, collects the proceedings of a conference held at the Orient-Institut in 2021, during which the main issue was the formation and development of specific musical and theatrical models for the representation of the “Other” (in this case, the Turkish-Ottoman) in France and German-speaking countries. The pre/text was the “Turkish ceremony” from the comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) with libretto by Molière (1622-1673) and music by Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) and choreography by Pierre Beauchamp (1631-1705): as is well known, in the fourth interlude of the opera, a “Turkish ceremony” is performed, with dances and instrumental music, to award the title of nobleman to the bourgeois Jourdain. My review examines and analyses in detail the various essays presented by the distinguished authors in the book.