This is a passionate exploration of opera and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Zizek and Dolar explore the compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, and examine our own desires for opera and death.

Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera.

"...provides many new and remarkable conclusions from a contemporary, Eastern European point of viewthat will interest opera specialists and cultural historians." -- A.M. Hanson, Ihoice"...an engaging and frequently illuminating commentary on the impulses, desires and fantasies that enrich both our own lives and those of the colorful characters that populate our favorite operas." -- Barry Millington, BBC Music Magazine Direct