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It may seem odd to pay homage to Michael Basch with an essay on an interdisciplinary topic, as the work he will be remembered for deals with theoretical and clinical matters. The quality that distinguished his contributions, however, was conscientious attention paid to findings in cognate disciplines and their meticulous integration with the clinical data of psychoanalysis. I trust that the chapter to follow will demonstrate analogous commitments.
Some years ago, on a visit to Berlin, I discovered that Mike's family is still remembered there as former owners of one of the preeminent German publishing houses. This fact reminded me of Mike's self-mockery about the dire effects of having sat as a child in the lap of a future pope, a familiar in their household. Clearly, emigration tore him away from a way of life scarely thinkable in America. It is that civilization I attempt to evoke in this memento mori.
Interdisciplinary collaboration between psychoanalysis and the humanities has been fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings. One might think that such problems would be manageable in dealing with narratives, the understanding of which is largely dependent on discerning the motivations of their protagonists. Indeed, many works of literature and drama have been enriched through psychoanalytic interpretation that deals with their characters as if they were real persons (Eissler, 1970). This procedure is less suitable for genres that may or may not present personae as realistic human beings. Among these narratives, the dramatic musical theater—opera—is most likely to deal with unrealistic subject matter,