March 12, 2004

'Opera: The Art of Dying'

By NINA C. AYOUB

In opera, singing one's own death is a fate common to many characters. The art is one of the most death-obsessed of all Western forms, say Linda and Michael Hutcheon, authors of Opera: The Art of Dying (Harvard University Press). Death also helps satisfy opera's need for powerful themes to streamline and tell a story concisely -- it takes longer to sing words, they note, than to say them.

But does death function as more than a dramatic plot device?

The Hutcheons think so.

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