Down the generations, certain intellectuals have been attracted to opera. Nietzsche, outstandingly.

Also Bernard Williams, the English philosopher (1929–2003). Williams wrote about opera throughout his life, and, three years after his death, a collection was published: On Opera.

In 2017, Mitchell Cohen, the political scientist who was long an editor at Dissent, published The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart. It is a brilliant book, loaded with learning.

So is the latest from Martha C. Nussbaum, the philosopher, who works at the University of Chicago.

Like Williams, who was one of her teachers, she has written about opera throughout her life. At age six, she was taken to the Metropolitan Opera by her grandmother.

"We had close-up orchestra seats for Verdi's Rigoletto, which shocked and profoundly moved me," she writes. The post Political Overtures appeared first on .