Scores of Being

This monograph studies opera as music drama, guided by four ideas: opera as an ambiance (setting an acoustic stage where dramatic action becomes possible), as a Gesamtkunstwerk (incorporating other arts forms into a coherent whole), as archaeology (revivifying lost worlds of experience) and as a dialectical syllogism (resulting in the negation of a paralysing negation via a dramatic act). We focus on Richard Wagner, as composer and author, but also address other music dramas (by Giacomo Puccini and John Adams), adopting a Hegelian dialectical perspective, but involving other dialectical thinkers (e.g., Marx and Engels) as well.

Hub Zwart is professor of philosophy and Dean of Erasmus School of Philosophy (Erasmus University Rotterdam). His research develops a dialectical perspective on contemporary science, confronting it with genres of the imagination (drama, poetry, novels, music).