Dr. Wendy Heller

Biography

Wendy Heller is the Scheide Professor of Music History and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Princeton University. She is recognized as a leading scholar in the field of Baroque music and specializes in the study of 17th- and 18th-century opera from interdisciplinary perspectives, with a special emphasis on gender, sexuality, art history, Italian literature, and dance history. Author of the award-winning book "Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women’s Voices in Seventeenth-Century Venice," Heller has published numerous essays examining composers like Monteverdi and Handel. She is currently completing a book titled "Animating Ovid: Opera, Metamorphoses, and Antiquity in Early Modern Italy." A trained singer from the New England Conservatory, she received her PhD in musicology from Brandeis University. Heller has played a pivotal role in fostering the performance of Baroque operas at Princeton and served as dramaturg for the University Opera Theater's production of Monteverdi’s "L’incoronazione di Poppea" in 2014. In addition, Heller has contributed to editorial boards, including that of Opera Cavalli, and is involved with prominent boards like the American Handel Society. Over her career, she has received prestigious fellowships and awards, including the Rome Prize and the Mellon Fellowship from the Society for Humanities at Columbia University.

Research Interests

Awards