Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor
201S
617-495-2791
Carolyn Abbate writes about and teaches classes centered on opera as it has evolved over the past four centuries, with special emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her work ranges widely, drawing from disciplines including linguistics and semiotics, philosophy, film sound and film 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 nineteenth-century organic chemistry.