Opera on the Couch Music, Emotional Life, and Unconscious Aspects of Mind

In this widely ranging collection of essays, a group of contemporary psychoanalyst/authors turn their finely-honed listening skills and clinical experience to plumb the depths and illuminate themes of character, drama, myth, culture, and psychobiography in some of the world’s most beloved operas. The richly diverse chapters are unified by a psychoanalytic approach to the nuances of unconscious mental life and emotional experience as they unfold synergistically in opera’s music, words, and drama. Opera creates a unique bridge between thought and feeling, mind and body, and conscious and unconscious that offers fertile ground for psychological exploration of profound human truths. Each piece is written in a colorful and non-technical manner that will appeal to mental health professionals, musicians, academics, and general readers wishing to better understand and appreciate opera as an art form.

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements 1. Psychoanalysis and Opera: A Felicitous Match Steven H. Goldberg & Lee Rather 2. The Internal World of Don Giovanni Richard Rusbridger 3. Across the Great Divide: Reflections on the Moral Reversal in Mozart’s The Magic Flute Lee Rather 4. Lucia di Lammermoor: An Intersection of the Oral and Aural Roads Julie Jaffee Nagel 5. Transformation through the Other: Senta and The Flying Dutchman L. Eileen Keller 6. The Orpheus of All Secret Misery; The Expression of Profound Grief in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde John J. H. Muller IV 7. The Dark Matter of Wagner’s Dream: Chaos and Creativity in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Jeanne C. Harasemovitch 8. Evil as Sadistic Perversion in Tosca Amy Tyson 9. Sliding Walls and Glimpses of the Other in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly Steven H. Goldberg 10. Elektra: Traumatic loss and the Impossibility of Mourning Catherine Mallouh 11. Yearning for Intimacy: Bela Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Anna Balas MD 12. Reflections on Applied Analysis and a Secret Program in Alban Berg's Wozzeck Ralph Beaumont 13. Janácek’s Eternal Feminine: The Makropulos Affair Adele Tutter 14. Billy Budd: A Study in Envy and Repression Milton Schaefer 15. Sendak and Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are: A Developmental Journey Debbie Hindle Appendix Index

Steven H. Goldberg, M.D., is a training and supervising analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and a personal and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. In addition to many publications, he has co-chaired Opera on the Couch in collaboration with the San Francisco Opera. Lee Rather, Ph.D., is a personal and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and a faculty at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. As a teacher, presenter, and writer he has a long-time interest in the unconscious aspects of creativity in music, literature, and the arts.