Since its widespread revival over the past forty years, the practitioners of baroque opera have been principally concerned with its vocal and orchestral aspects, and extensive efforts have taken place to reconstruct these in a historically informed manner. What has often been overlooked is that opera's communicative power also depends on the visual and theatrical elements that complement the musical performance. However, the reconstruction of historical acting is not a straightforward proposition. The lack of reliable means to notate or record movement and gesture in the seventeenth century has created a documentary boundary for reconstructors today. While aspects of musical performance practice are accessible through the musical score and other sources, the element of acting belongs to a domain where text alone is unable to provide sufficient clues: only a combination of empirical and textual research can prove fruitful, and this was what sparked the idea for a seminar where researchers and practitioners could discuss such matters and experiment.

The seminar on historical action entitled ‘Baroque Gesture: What's the Point?’ took place at New College, University of Oxford, on Saturday 18 April 2015 and was organized by me (Dionysios Kyropoulos) and Andrew Lawrence-King. The day opened with Lawrence-King welcoming the participants and setting out the aims of the seminar. Subsequently he led a roundtable discussion about the most important factors that go to make up a good performance and how historical action can be used to improve it.

Following the discussion, I gave a presentation that introduced the field of historical acting and gesture, and examined some of the reasons why these are rarely used today, such as the lack of period stagecraft teaching in the undergraduate curriculums of conservatoires and the all-or-nothing approach of directors and producers who seem eager to experiment with historical acting only if everything else in the production is historical (costumes, lighting, sets and so forth). The roots of baroque gesture were traced back to ancient rhetoric, and the connection between rhetoric and music was explored, as well as the significance of the medical theory of the four humours as a historical means of understanding the workings of the body and soul. The physical-emotional concept of humorism, which is inextricably connected with the theory of the affections and their encapsulation in baroque musical ideals, can offer great insights to modern performers and stage directors, and can become the basis of new rehearsal techniques. The basic rules of historical stagecraft, as deduced from a list of twenty historical treatises, were demonstrated, and pointers and examples drawn from my personal experience as a performer and director were given. The information from primary sources together with lessons learned from other revivals (such as the historical-instrument revival) can help us construct modern working models of period acting techniques. These techniques could be used to create performances which would be historically informed but would at the same time touch a modern audience, without alienating it.

After my presentation, Lawrence-King spoke about the performance of seventeenth-century opera. He introduced the idea of tactus (a stable pulse) for the musical side of the performance, offering a plethora of examples and links with historical sources. He also explained that recitar cantando, the compositional style used in the first operas, is music that aims to serve the text and was meant to be acted. He then spoke of how courtly sprezzatura (the mannerisms and attitudes employed by the courtiers in the Seicento) and the skills of dance and swordsmanship had a pronounced effect on stage movement and action, and how we could harness their power by studying these disciplines in the context of operatic performance today.

The lunch break was followed by practical workshops where the theoretical ideas introduced in the first half of the seminar were applied. I started by working with the participants on the basics of historical stagecraft, including the standard posture and feet positions, and the way to move and to use the arms and hands. When the basics were assimilated, Lawrence-King introduced specific gestures using examples from operas, explained how characters address each other on stage, and then worked on stage positioning and arrangement. Finally, pointing gestures (deictics) and their power to evoke the imagination were explored in depth. The day ended with an informal discussion and feedback session with the participants.

It is hoped that this seminar will be the first of many to come. Providing a platform for researchers and practitioners to interact, to share their experiences and to experiment is, I believe, one of the best ways to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical investigations and bring us a step closer to unearthing the full potential of historical stagecraft in a modern context.