Seeing Opera Anew: A Cultural and Biological Perspective

Most approaches to opera present information solely from the humanities, but Seeing Opera Anew offers a “stereo” perspective, integrating insights from the sciences closely related to human life, including evolutionary biology and psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. As the analysis and discussion of opera has become more interdisciplinary in recent decades, going beyond the traditional approaches of musicology to assimilate cultural perspectives such as postmodern theory, Seeing Opera Anew advances that interdisciplinary project by including contemporary evolutionary theories based in human biology. Seeing Opera Anew shows how relevant sciences—which traditionally have been disregarded—can contribute to the understanding and appreciation of music-dramas, the richest art. What people ultimately want from music-drama, audience research suggests, is to be absorbed in a story that engages their feelings, even moves them deeply, and that may lead them to insights about life and, perhaps, themselves; this book shows how both human biology and culture cause these effects. Why music-dramas can offer such rich, immersive experiences, powerfully affecting our feelings and our understanding of life, is what Seeing Opera Anew is about. Written to stimulate the student and opera-goer as much as the professional, Seeing Opera Anew freshly examines and interprets more than 15 operas in an informal and lively way (but one based on scholarship).