Verdi-paper

Background. To describe and compare love-related mortality in German and Italian operas of the 19th century, as operas are perfectly suited as a setting to study the relationship between love and premature death.Method. This is a historic cohort study of named characters in the 19th century operas by Italian and German composers included in a modern reference work. Follow-up lasted from the start of the opera until the final curtain. We calculated overall and cause-specific (e.g. love, violence) mortality, and proportional mortality ratios.Results: Among 76 eligible operas (23 German and 53 Italian) with 614 named characters, we recorded 118 deaths. The risk of dying young in opera is substantial, accounting for 94 of the 118 deaths. Violence was the main direct cause of death (62.7%) and love the main indirect cause (39.8%). The risk of dying of love was almost twice as high in Italian operas compared to German ones (46.8% versus 26.8%). Women experienced an almost double risk of dying of love compared to men (54.8% versus 31.6%).Discussion: This is the first empirical study on the contribution of passionate love to premature mortality. Its novelty lies in the use of opera as a source of epidemiological data. Our findings support the hypothesis that Italians are more passionate than Germans, resulting in proportionately more young people dying because of love in Italian operas. These findings provide further evidence for a link between emotion and mortality.