Opera Scholar to Join Faculty

Carolyn Abbate, an opera scholar known for combining the study of music with other disciplines, will join Harvard’s music department next fall after years of teaching students at Princeton.

“Abbate is a great catch for Harvard,” said Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music and chair of the music department Thomas F. Kelly. “She is an interesting thinker whose interests match well with those of the other faculty, including a very strong specialization in opera.”

Kelly praised Abbate’s passion for interacting with students. “She is interested in teaching undergraduates and would probably teach broad courses within the core, or whatever replaces the core,” he said. “From the point of view of a Harvard undergrad this is good.”

Kelly also spoke of Abbate’s unique approach to the study music. While her academic focus is opera, Abbate is known to cross over into literature, philosophy and film.

At Princeton, Abbate taught interdisciplinary courses, spanning several fields including German, European Cultural Studies and Media and Modernity.

In addition to working with Harvard undergraduates, Abbate will be a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She returns to Harvard after a brief stint as a visiting professor in 1993 and has taught at other universities around the globe including California-Berkelely and Freie Universitat in Berlin.

“Abbate combines a wealth of knowledge, a remarkable level of creativity, and a spirit of exploration matched by few others in musical scholarship,” said Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby in a press release this week.

“Abbate is a splendid teacher and scholar who will bring real strength to Harvard’s studies in the arts,” University President Lawrence H. Summers said in the release.

Abbate boasts experience as a pianist and theater performer. She served as the dramaturge for this year’s production of “Don Giovanni” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

She co-wrote the yet to be published Penguin History of Opera, an overview of the history of opera, and has authored “In Search of Opera” (2001) and “Unsung Voices” (1991).

Abbate received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995, the Dent Medal of the Royal Music Association in 1993 as well as National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for Independent Study and Research in 1986 and 1994.

Abbate, 49, graduated from Yale University in 1977, attended the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich and later received her Ph.D. in 1984 from Princeton, where she began teaching in the same year.