A Multimodal Approach to the Study of Opera in Aribert Reimann’s Medea

This book offers insights into the ways in which the myth of Medea reflects cultural concepts deeply rooted in our cognition and their expression through language and music. The myth of Medea, its symbols and motives, constitutes one of the most thrilling themes in performing arts and literature. Aribert Reimann’s opera Medea, based on the drama Medea by Franz Grillparzer, has enjoyed great success. Given that cultural concepts are manifested through cognitive mechanisms like conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy, the book offers a finely-nuanced analysis of the application of figurative mechanisms in visual and music modes, in addition to verbal. It will appeal to musicologists, theatre theorists and scholars of cognitive science, as well as opera singers, opera directors and dramaturgists.