Poções e Paixões
Poções e Paixões
João Paulo André
What do Tristan and Isolde’s love potion, witches flying on broomsticks, the death of Prince Hamlet, Emperor Nero’s mother, Marilyn Monroe and… composer Giacomo Puccini have in common? With opera as the guiding thread, this work takes the reader on a journey into the extraordinary world of potions and passions, which chemistry explains, at least in part.
Chemistry is a meeting point for different disciplines: it is the “central science” because it lies between mathematics and physics on the one hand, and biology and geology on the other, providing essential contributions to applied sciences such as medicine and various fields of engineering. Opera, for its part, has been called a “total work of art” because it combines music, singing, theatre and the visual arts.
João Paulo André, with his unrivalled mastery of both chemistry and opera, offers us in this book a profoundly original connection between science and art. With him, we realise that chemistry is everywhere, even in love, and that opera is a spectacle that is much richer than ‘stories in which the baritone loves the soprano, who loves the tenor’.
A work for both science and art lovers, in an unprecedented meeting of cultures.
Available
2018
Portuguese
978-989-616-811-7
Study
Gradiva
João Paulo André is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minho. He holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Coimbra and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Basel, Switzerland, specialising in Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry. He has dedicated himself to scientific dissemination, exploring the intersections between science and art. A columnist for the newspaper Nascer do SOL, he is the author of the books Poções e Paixões – Química e Ópera (Potions and Passions – Chemistry and Opera) (2018) and Irmãs de Prometeu – A Química no Feminino (Sisters of Prometheus – Chemistry in the Feminine) (2022), both published by Gradiva. The first was adapted into Braille and audio by the National Library, inspiring an opera performance presented in several cities across the country. The second was published in English by Springer.