What love is - we know it, yet we don't know it so precisely. We need poets and composers to clarify this for us, perhaps even to teach us. Is what we call love a product of art? The fitting words, the beautiful songs, the moving music? Iso Camartin, who led the opera workshop at the Zurich Opera House from 2004 to 2012, tells and explains what love is, especially what operatic love means. On one hand, it signifies the enthusiasm for this spectacular art form, which Camartin explores in this book from its beginnings with Monteverdi to classical modernity. Composers and librettists, arias and ensembles, divas and star performers are described with expertise. However, operatic love primarily refers to the entirety of the manifestations through which we experience love on the opera stage to this day. This book.