The Theatre of Drottningholm--Then and Now tells the story of the Drottningholm Court Theatre, an opera house located at Drottningholm Palace near Stockholm. The theater was rarely used after the death of King Gustav III in 1792 until it was rediscovered in 1921, which has left not only the auditorium but also the stage machinery, painted flats, and backdrops almost perfectly preserved. Starting in 1766, the year it was built, and proceeding through to today's performances presented during annual summer festivals, Willmar Sauter and David Wiles paint a vivid portrait of the...

In the field of aesthetic experiences, presence must be seen as mental activities such as attention, curiosity, and participation. The mere physical 'being-there' guarantees no aesthetic responses to artistic or natural appearances. When aesthetics became part of the discourse in eighteenth-century Enlightenments philosophy, the beholder was the centre of interest: how observations turned into aesthetic experiences. In this book, the spectator, reader, listener and viewer have again become the focus of scholarly attention, replacing the century-long dominance of the artwork as exclusive...

In the field of aesthetic experiences, presence must be seen as mental activities such as attention, curiosity, and participation. The mere physical 'being-there' guarantees no aesthetic responses to artistic or natural appearances. When aesthetics became part of the discourse in eighteenth-century Enlightenments philosophy, the beholder was the centre of interest: how observations turned into aesthetic experiences. In this book, the spectator, reader, listener and viewer have again become the focus of scholarly attention, replacing the century-long dominance of the artwork as exclusive...