Medicine & Opera | Comments and reviews of opera, music, and medicine

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Verdi’s Overture to The Sicilian Vespers

October 7, 2026

Verdi’s overture to The Sicilian Vespers compresses much of his dramatic genius into a single orchestral movement. Menace, tenderness, violence, and exhilaration succeed one another with an assurance that makes the music compelling even to listeners unfamiliar with the opera. Its independent life in the concert hall is entirely deserved. Yet its popularity also presents […]

Così Fan Tutte in HD 2026

October 3, 2026

The Met’s 26-27 HD series started today with a reprise of Phelim McDermott’s production which was previously telecast by the company in 2018. You can read about the production set in 1950s Coney Island in my review of that telecast. Surprisingly, placing the story in an exaggerated version of the south Brooklyn amusement area worked, […]

Loredano Rosin – Master of Glass

October 2, 2026

Sometime in the mid 1980s I was visiting a colleague in Mestre on the mainland opposite Venice. He took me to the workshop of the famous glass sculptor Loredano Rosin. After a long conversation with the artist who demonstrated his technique with sculptured, not blown, glass I acquired the two figures shown below. Click on […]

One Hit Composers

September 29, 2026

I’ll get the easy ones out of the way right now. Beethoven, Debussy, and Bartók. Each completed only one opera – Fidelio, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Bluebeard’s Castle, respectively. Fidelio gave Beethoven more trouble than any of his compositions. The opera went through three versions, in 1805, 1806, and 1814. After the final version he […]

Verdi’s Macbeth Opens Met Season

September 23, 2026

A new production of Verdi’s first Shakespeare based opera opened the 26-27 season last night. The cast was headed by Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen. Obviously I’ll have to wait until Oct 17 to see the production as it is the second opera of this season’s Met in HD series. The performance was broadcast on […]

Schumpeter and Amazon – Coming and Going

September 15, 2026

The Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) is famous for his use of the concept of Creative Destruction. It describes how capitalism advances: new products, technologies, and business methods displace established ones. The innovations that create wealth and improve productivity also destroy older businesses and jobs. For Schumpeter, this continual upheaval was the central engine of […]

French Operas By Italian Composers

September 13, 2026

Paris was the center of Western Culture in the 19th century. It was for this reason that Italian composers were eager to write new works for the city’s major theaters. Many of the important composers of that era were fluent in French making the task of writing a “French” opera relatively easy. Here are four […]

The Verdi Requiem – 2026

September 8, 2026

The Lubbock Symphony Orchestra will perform the Verdi Requiem at the Buddy Holly Hall on Oct 15. Tickets may be purchased here. Below are the program notes I wrote for the concert. Pianse ed amò per tutti (He wept and loved for everyone)Gabriele D’AnnunzioOn the occasion of Verdi’s death D’Annunzio (a poet and playwright) understood […]

Hormone replacement therapy and dementia risk among postmenopausal women

September 6, 2026

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th September 2026 Hormone replacement therapy and dementia risk among postmenopausal women: Identifying responsive subgroups in the UK Biobank is a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. This large observational study found that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was associated with a modestly lower hazard […]

The Rigoletto Quartet

September 1, 2026

Rigoletto was Verdi’s seventeenth opera. Julian Budden, author of the definitive three-volume study of Verdi’s operas, compares Rigoletto’s place in Verdi’s development with that of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The opera marks the beginning of Verdi’s mature period, in which nearly every subsequent work would be a masterpiece. As Benjamin Britten remarked, “Verdi seemed to have […]

Cannabis Use Disorder in American Adults

August 28, 2026

In December 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14370, declaring it federal policy to increase medical marijuana and cannabidiol (CBD) research and directing the Attorney General to expedite the movement of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. The order stated that marijuana has credible scientific support for pain, medically related anorexia, and nausea and […]

Random Thoughts About Inflation

August 24, 2026

Inflation, the sustained rise in the general level of prices, is almost as old as money itself. Although individual prices may increase because something becomes scarce, true inflation occurs when prices rise broadly and money consequently loses purchasing power. There are seemingly endless ways to make prices rise and thereby erode the purchasing power of […]

Polymyalgia Rheumatica

August 19, 2026

Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is an inflammatory disorder that occurs almost entirely in people over the age of 50. Its name is somewhat misleading: although it literally means “rheumatic pain in many muscles,” the muscles themselves are not primarily diseased. Much of the inflammation appears to involve structures around the joints, including bursae and tendons, particularly […]

The Metropolitan Opera Archives

August 16, 2026

The performance history (1883-1985) of the Met was compiled in print and released in the massive Annals of the Metropolitan Opera in 1989. It was published in two volumes. The first was Chronology 1883-1985, while the second was Tables 1883-1985. I had a copy of the print edition that I used frequently. In 2005 the […]

More on the Met’s Problems

August 14, 2026

In this post and the one to follow, I will discuss two problems that are characteristic of the difficulties that have accumulated to the point where the continued existence of one of America’s cultural treasures is threatened or at least seriously challenged. One, the subject of this discussion, is beyond the control of the company. […]

Medicine & Opera: Comments and reviews of opera, music, and medicine