Don Giovanni Goes to Prison

Two years ago, Pier Paolo Polzonetti, an Italian-born music professor at Notre Dame University, wrote an essay about teaching Don Giovanni to a music history class that he taught inside a maximum-security prison. His essay, “Don Giovanni Goes to Prison: Teaching Opera Behind Bars,” was published on the blog Musicology Now, run by the American Musicology Society (AMS), the most prestigious academic association for music scholars.

Polzonetti’s blog post ignited controversy among music scholars and students across the internet. He was accused by some of condescension, colonialism, and racism for opining that his inmate-students were more familiar with the “blatant lyrics and pounding beats” of rap than they were with opera, and for suggesting studying opera could help prisoners gain emotional self-control. He was defended by others, who in turn accused Polzonetti’s accusers of political correctness.

Here is a Reddit dialogue with comments by the opposing factions.

Here is a post by one of Polzonetti’s detractors.

Here is a post by one of Polzonetti’s defenders.

What do you think?