Maria Virginia Acuña

Areas of research

I am a music historian specializing in early modern music and culture, opera, and gender in music. My research explores the musical and theatrical cultures of early modern Spain through an interdisciplinary lens that situates music within its literary, theatrical, political, philosophical, religious, and cultural contexts. I examine how opera and other forms of musical theatre shaped and reflected questions of power, identity, gender, race, and social values in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Spain. A central focus of my scholarship is gender and performance, particularly cross-dressing and other performative practices that illuminate the construction of identity and the workings of social and political power. I also examine themes of love, emotion, magic, witchcraft, parody, and humor, showing how musical theatre engaged with broader intellectual and cultural currents of the early modern world. A major contribution of my scholarship has been to advance the study of Spanish Baroque theatrical music, a repertoire long underrepresented in Anglophone scholarship. By bringing this rich body of works into broader scholarly conversations, my research contributes to a more inclusive understanding of early modern music.

Brief biography

I was born in Canada to Argentine immigrant parents and later lived in Argentina, experiences that have shaped my bicultural perspective and my scholarly engagement with the musical cultures of the Hispanic world. I began my musical training at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Música in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I hold B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2016). Before joining the University of Victoria, I was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University's Schulich School of Music. I have also taught at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

As an educator, I strive to create an engaging and inclusive learning environment grounded in curiosity, dialogue, and enthusiasm for music. Students have commented on my passion for teaching and my ability to bring historical and cultural contexts to life in the classroom.

Teaching

I teach core music history courses as well as interdisciplinary electives on early music, opera, gender, politics, and cultural studies. My teaching is research-informed and encourages students to engage critically with underrepresented repertoires, including Spanish and New World musical theatre, as well as with questions of identity, race, gender, and power.

I welcome inquiries from prospective graduate students interested in early modern music, opera, Spanish Baroque music and theatre, music and gender, performance studies, interdisciplinary approaches to music, and Latin American musical cultures.

Courses taught at UVic

MUS 116: Music Appreciation
MUS 121: Western Music from Antiquity to 1750
MUS 123: Writing about Music
MUS 220A: Western Music from 1750 to 1885
MUS 391: Music, Women and Culture
MUS 498: Graduating Project in Music History
MUS 532: Myths and Tales in Early Modern Music
MUS 503: Introduction to Graduate Study and Music Bibliography
MUS 530: The Politics of Opera, 1600–1750
MUS 531: Gender and Race on the Musical Stage
MUS 532: Music, Myth, and Legend
MUS 533: Graduate Forum in Musicology
MUS 534: Advanced Research Forum in Musicology

Select publications

Book:

• Co-authored with Susan Lewis. Claudio Monteverdi: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge, 2018. 242 pp.

Book Chapters:

• ““With Tears I Complain about Thee”: Literary Traditions of Lovesickness and Lamenting on the Spanish Musical Stage,” in The Routledge Companion to Early Modern Music and Literature, edited by Rachel Durkin, Katharina Clausius, Christin Hoene, and Katherine Butler. Routledge, 2026.
• “Violencia y desesperación: la utilización de los afectos en las obras de música teatral de Sebastián Durón,” in Sebastián Durón (1660–1716) y la música de su época, edited by Paulino Capdepón and Juan José Pastor Comín. Editorial Academia del Hispanismo, 2013.

Peer-reviewed articles:

• “Minerva, the Queen and the Grandees of Spain: Opera and Politics in Sebastián Durón’s La guerra de los gigantes” Cambridge Opera Journal 37.3: 195–219.
• “Enamorados ridículos: acerca del humor y la parodia en Acis y Galatea (1708),” Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana 35 (2022): 171–91.
• “May she who was once beautiful be transformed into a monster”: Magic and Witchcraft in Envy is the Poison of Love (Madrid, 1711),” Early Music 48.3 (2020): 377–90.
• “Love Conquers All: Cupid, Philip V, and the Allegorical Zarzuela during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–16),” Eighteenth-Century Music 15.1 (2018): 29–45.  
• “Sobbing Cupids, Lamenting Lovers, and Weeping Nymphs in the Early Zarzuela: Calderón de la Barca’s El laurel de Apolo (1657) and Durón and Navas’s Apolo y Dafne (ca. 1700),” Bulletin of the Comediantes 69.2 (2017): 69–95.

Conference preceedings:

• ““Muera Cupido!”: Una lectura sobre la filosofía del amor en Salir el amor del mundo (c.1696),” in Musicología global, musicología local, edited by Pilar Ramos López, Javier Marín López, Germán Gan Quesada y Elena Torres Clemente. Sociedad Española de Musicología, 2013.

“Amusing the King: Gender, Parody and Musical Theatre in Early 18th Century Spain.”
Deans’ Lecture Series. Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria. Fall 2022.