Opera on the Couch

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.

• 1. Introduction: Psychoanalysis and Opera: A Felicitous MatchSteven H. Goldberg & Lee Rather2. The Internal World of Don GiovanniRichard Rusbridger 3. Across the Great Divide: Reflections on the Moral Reversal in Mozart’s The MagicFluteLee Rather4. Lucia di Lammermoor: An Intersection of the Oral and Aural RoadsJulie Jaffee Nagel 5. Transformation through the Other: Senta and The Flying DutchmanL. Eileen Keller 6. The Orpheus of all Secret Misery; The Expression of Profound Grief in Wagner’sTristan und IsoldeJohn J. H. Muller IV7. The Dark Matter of Wagner’s Dream: Chaos and Creativity in Die Meistersinger vonNürnbergJeanne C. Harasemovitch8. Evil as Sadistic Perversion in ToscaAmy Tyson9. Sliding Walls and Glimpses of the Other in Puccini’s Madama ButterflySteven H. Goldberg10. Elektra: Traumatic loss and the Impossibility of MourningCatherine Mallouh11. Yearning for intimacy: Bela Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Anna Balas MD12. Reflections on Applied Analysis and a Secret Program in Alban Berg's WozzeckRalph Beaumont13. Janáček’s Eternal Feminine: The Makropulos AffairAdele Tutter 14. Billy Budd: A Study in Envy and RepressionMilton Schaefer 15. Sendak and Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are: A Developmental JourneyDebbie Hindle 16. Appendix: Synopses of the Operas

‘Goldberg and Rather have compiled an operatic and psychoanalytic treat for lovers of opera. Their imaginative and scholarly introduction demonstrates how much the two disciplines share in common. Every psychoanalytic session has something of an opera about it, and the music and drama of every opera tells a psychological tale. Readers will have their appreciation of both disciplines deepened and much enhanced’Francis J. Grier. Composer. Training Analyst and Supervisor, British Psychoanalytic Society. Regional Editor (UK) & Editor-In-Chief Elect, International Journal of Psychoanalysis‘Opera lovers have long known that the most direct path to the psyche is via the complex interplay of extraordinary music and profound human experiences depicted in the great operas. Psychoanalytic thinkers have pondered the connection over many decades. It is a great delight to read this extraordinary new volume that so masterfully brings together heart and the mind. Therapists, music lovers, and historians will love it!’Glen O. Gabbard, M.D. Baylor College of Medicine; Training and Supervising Analyst. Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, Houston, TX.‘Like fairy tales or myths brought to life, opera touches deep levels of our understanding. This thoughtful collection of papers bringing opera and psychoanalysis together shows much about why this is so. While the themes of individual operas are illuminated by erudite psychoanalytic commentary, the understanding of the interplay of words and music in opera enhances a grasp of the interplay between verbal and non-verbal, conscious and unconscious in analysis. A pleasure to read.’Lucy LaFarge, M.D. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College. Editor in Chief, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly