Bourgeois Vacation Spot

Carolyn Abbate, Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University, writes about and teaches classes centered on opera as it has evolved over the past four centuries, with special emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. Her work ranges widely, drawing from disciplines including linguistics and semiotics, philosophy, film sound and music, and the history of science. Outside academia, she has worked as a dramaturge and director, and as a translator. Forthcoming projects include essays on microphonics in past historical eras, on musical efficacy, and on Richard Wagner’s entanglements with 19th-century organic chemistry.