An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

HUTCHESON, Michael

1 entries
  • 12316

Opera, desire, disease, death.

Omaha, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

"The book focuses on operatic representations of disease and on the ways in which operas associate illness with sexuality, gender, and desire. The authors consider the frequent operatic alliance of tuberculosis with female sexuality (as in Verdi's La Traviata and Puccini's La Boheme); the relation between venereal disease and the moral transgression or failure of male heroes (as in Wagner's Parsifal and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress); and the association of cholera and homosexual desire in Berg's Lulu and Britten's Death in Venice. A virtuosic chapter considers how assorted operas have identified smoking with sexuality and rebellion. The conclusion considers parallels between earlier operatic representations of disease and recent cultural and scientific representations of AIDS" (publisher).



Subjects: Music and Medicine