Samenvatting

In this essay the nature of crime and death in opera is dealt with, focussing on a select number of operas, such as Verdi’s MacBeth, Wagner’s Die Walküre and Strauss’s Salome and Elektra. It appears that crime in opera is pervasive and appears in many different forms, as well as in a wide variety of contexts. An attempt is made to analyse the way composers manipulate the circumstances of killings – lenghtening or shortening or replacing scenes – in order to get maximum results in terms of emotional content.