Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Opera

  • The parallel paths of opera and medicine

    Fête musicale. Oil on canvas by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1747. Louvre Museum. Via Wikimedia. In 1597 when Jacopo Peri composed Dafne, the first opera ever written, sporadic epidemics of bubonic plague were still striking his city of Florence. Venice was also suffering greatly. It had been visited by the plague twenty-two times, and some 50,000…

  • The patronage and playability of Mozart’s flute works

    Stephen Martin Durham, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Exposition of the D Major flute quartet. Beethoven borrowed the first two bars. Mozart obviously used a thicker-cut quill for hand-writing than for the notes. ‘Figur Handschrift’ is in a later hand. (IMSLP, CCA-SA 4.0) It is therapeutic to have an intellectual interest outside clinical work, a…

  • Richard Wagner, a man of many symptoms

    Richard Wagner, Munich. 1871. by Franz Hanfstaengl. Via Wikimedia. Richard Wagner was an extraordinarily talented musical genius. Almost singlehandedly he revolutionized opera, completing its transformation from the traditional recitative–aria format to a continuous musical drama. He was born in 1813 in turbulent times in Leipzig. There four months after his birth the combined forces of…

  • Maria Callas—her inner voice revealed

    Eelco Wijdicks Lea Dacy Rochester, Minnesota, United States   Cover: Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas. In Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas, Paul Wink convincingly concludes—based on largely secondary sources—that Maria Callas was not only a wildly ambitious operator who was not known for an emollient manner, but a prime example of…

  • The finality in their voices II: physiology-defying violent opera death

    Lea C. Dacy Eelco F. M. Wijdicks Rochester, Minnesota, United States   The title character in Werther bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted gunshot wound but still able to sing an extended aria, used with permission from Alamy. In a previous article, we reviewed the plausibility of opera deaths in wasting diseases such as that of…

  • The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera

    Lea C. Dacy Eelco F. M. Wijdicks Rochester, Minnesota, United States   Figure 1: Violetta’s deathbed in La Traviata, from 2009 Glimmerglass Opera production directed by Sir Jonathan Miller. Photo by Richard Termine, used with his permission. I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept…

  • Ladies in red: medical and metaphorical reflections on La Traviata

    Milad Matta Gregory Rutecki Lyndhurst, Ohio, United States   Illustration by Jason Malmberg. “. . . phthisic beauty[’s] . . . most famous operatic embodiment was Violetta Valery . . .This physical type became not only fashionable but sexy . . . When a society does not understand—and cannot control—a disease, ground seems to open…

  • Bad blood: The drama of bloodshed

    Emily Boyle Dublin, Ireland   Lucia’s mad scene – Rachelle Durkin as Lucia during The Chautauqua Opera’s dress rehearsal for Lucia di Lammermoor. Photo by Michelle Kanaar. In some professions, bloodstained clothing is a normal part of the job. The two jobs that come to mind principally are a butcher and a vascular surgeon, although…

  • Gioachino Rossini of The Barber of Seville (1792–1868)

    In The Barber of Seville, Doctor Bartolo is a pompous, grumpy old man who wants to marry his young niece many years his junior and whom he basically keeps locked up. As he appears on stage, he makes sure that all the doors are firmly secured so that nobody can enter the house while he…

  • “Breath of life you’ll be to me”—The portrayal of tuberculosis in the opera La Traviata

    Judith Wagner Munich, Germany   Maria Callas in La Traviata The white half-round of the stage is illuminated with an eerie blue light. The only prop is a large clock on the right-hand side. A dark figure is seated beside it. The door on the left opens and the heroine—clad all in red—enters the stage.…