Metaphysical Song

Connecting opera to shifting visions of metaphysics and selfhood across the last four hundred years, this book examines the relationship between the self and metaphysics as described by philosophers from Ficino through Descartes, Kant and Nietzsche, to Adorno. He then argues that opera, in its own right, has brought these subjects to the stage. Among the composers featured are Peri, Wagner, Lully, Verdi, Mozart and Britten. The book details interactions of song, words, drama and sounds used by creators of opera to fill in the outlines of the subjectivities they envisioned.