In the seminar we will explore the changes the medium of opera has undergone in recent decades. How is opera understood today, how it is listened to and what is listed to are among the issues to be discussed, as well as those pertaining to the relationship between the different elements comprising opera, the influence of technology and recent off shoots such as music theatre, post-opera and the like. We will be reading essays on these topics from path breaking collections of new scholarship published in the last few years, as well as consider major works from the 20th and 21st centuries.