The Science of Opera with Stephen Fry and Alan Davies

hello we are here tonight with some very very exciting and original and amazing scientific experiments which we will see the results of they have terrifying now we're gonna be asking some really big questions over the next hour or so does art Movers on a physiological level we all think we know how art and music affect us emotionally and inside ourselves and in terms of psyche but there are things that we can measure which are much more you might think banal and basic certain indices like blood pressure and heat and so on the real stars here are academics who have fixed this whole thing up and it'll become apparent as to what they did to me and to Allen they come from the world-renowned neuroscience department of UCL London professor Michael Trimble here is professor in behavioral neurology consultant position at the institution the institute of neurology at UCL and is himself another of operas that not like me right but correct absolutely splendid professor Christopher Mathias is professor of neurovascular medicine and the pioneer and groundbreaking work in autonomic and neurovascular disorders welcome you lover of opportunity not as much I've been converted it being converted excellence and finally Andrew Owens who is studying for a PhD in the psychophysiology of dis autonomia at UCL so I'd never need for me to explain what I did there you are welcome we've obviously got an autologous to do something really spectacularly exciting what all these ologists did was back in the summer they hooked Alan Davison lead up to some digital machinery or and gadgets that measured various parts of our autonomic systems and meanwhile we watched a performance of various political masterpiece Simone Bocanegra hello welcome welcome to Royal Opera House coming up Thank You Elsa smart and you have you never been here before I've never been I've been in the building but not in the auditorium right I'm gonna see your first op I can bring a seal yes and it's Verdi Giuseppe Verdi which is the Italian for Joe green no green here as you probably knew and we're going to see Simon Boccanegra which is Italian for Simon black bus yes it has of any use at some point on trying to explain the plot if you need it explain but there are search items either like subtitles they'll be there above the stage and it will be saga the champion but I think the beautiful language exactly if nothing else I think you will love it so that's going to start it's beautiful beautiful and meanwhile we are going to be measured for heart rate breathing sweat I think and varies on their emotional responses I'm not quite sure what they are got the team in imperial college abyss trying to see how we're responding here we go well here it is this is the world I always got a tomb or I come here the shape of it is it's kind of a golden age and I think this is one of the things that people offers nests a horseshoe the whole ship is obviously the shape but of course people think Oh living expensive in luxury and obviously it is your swimming costumes everything you'll see but it is terrifying and the size of the orchestra but that's where all the Italians eating picnics but not in boxes so then see the man himself Alan Davis welcome hello sir compadre let me see he's come all the way down from Northumberland on its one day off from filming so we're very very delighted that it was unfortunately but fortunate for us that you at least had this day off it timed beautifully so you enjoyed the experience yeah yes Tommy the plot tell me the plot of Sumeria that's right I said to me before I knew you should take notes I'm gonna ask you think isn't obviously you could have seen it four times it's not an easy command or tends not to be a man there's a bit where he meets his daughter but they don't know their father and daughter that was basically is the crux of it the emotional pivot about which it swivels and we'll get to that because that's actually a very interesting moment but what are your first impressions of that I mean it just as the building of them with the plush and the gold and the scale of it is extraordinary it's extraordinary front of house and behind the scenes it's like the Starship Enterprise this isn't it there are so many lifts in this building are so many floors and a gigantic docks for surfaces the whole scenery piled up to the stage you know and there are pillars going back and I assumed that about halfway down it would be painted scenery yes normally it'll be an optical illusion from that one but no there were all pillars that go from here across the River Thames stop it it's nice in Southwark and quite a large quite a large Orchestra I think to an orchestra eighty-four Superbook Alegre which can make a really full sound it was fantastic and I what was interesting with lots of people in their seats early and Steven explained to me they're reading the synopsis this is in the program so that they know what's going to come this is the thing with opera and realized you know all the story you know how it's done for you before you start and then you just enjoy how they're doing it yeah yeah though it does also help having a circle that helped me a lot I'd you had any experience of opera before I'd seen I'd been to see Salome a in New York when I won a charity auction for a trip and it included two tickets to salomi for its most notable because my wife at the time was having a little bit of constipation and I recommended prune juice immediately before the Opera and when it ended I've never seen anyone leave a theater so quickly we're still laugh about that first ticket salumi the item made me break my reading glasses which is gonna be quite common for the rest of the evening what was the purpose of your scientific experiment dollars what were you trying to find out well I'm very very interested that from one of your neurology as to what happens in the brain and the autonomic nervous system when people are moved to artistic experiences and I've carried out a number of studies over the years looking at the responses between the emotion responses and very interested in the different responses the different arts and crying is important because if you ask an audience such as this how many of you have ever cried to a piece of music you will find 90% of people will admit that if you then ask how many cried in front of a beautiful painting how many have cried in front of a beautiful statue or a beautiful building you're down to five or 10% in between you have poetry people who respond to either reading or listening to poetry they're about 60 percent of people will say they've cried but crying to music is very very special music is different from all of the other arts and of course that's that an age-old history but there are people who still suggest that all the arts are the same and our emotional responses are the same our emotional responses to music a very varied of the arts who deep deep beneath the arts it's how you get enforced to put it and after it comes from the word muse and in that sense it's the primary the primary art isn't it and and and what about your perspective well seeing the as my crumble said the autonomic nervous system is an amazing system because it's derived from being automatic so you and I all of us here have no idea in a way that our autonomic nervous systems are working phenomenally well so it's a system which is absolutely essential for our survival for starters so it controls our blood pressure it controls our temperature and if those two key things are not right we're gonners as at well but it's concerned with a whole range of activities and just to give you some idea and on the left is what's called the sympathetic nervous system it comes from the spinal cord it supplies every organ in the body on the opposite side is another branch called a parasympathetic nervous system and they sometimes work in opposition now the sympathetic is very much concerned with with flight and fright so it gives us up it increases our heart rate it increases our blood pressure so we can drive on to whatever we wish to the parasympathetic does a number of other things such as for instance helping and digestion helping in terms of the pupil so for instance in the dark we dilate our pupils so we can adapt well if it's bright sunlight we constrict our pupils so that we are not really hit by glare and of course it supplies a number of other organs and since we are in the watershed area where before 9 I can't talk about certain of the activities of the autonomic nervous system over here your PhD once it wants to in the game I'm the psychophysiology of disorder no I'm glad you find it the psychophysiology of auto did this dis aughtta no Meah which is a sort of pompous medic by saying dysfunctional of the autonomic so when it goes wrong yeah so as prof. Matthias just said it controls things like sweat glands and the heart so when it goes wrong it means that you have inappropriate activity of these organs and glands so for example a common example is someone that faints so that's the nerve that controls the heart slowing down the heart rate too much and dilated and blood vessels so the blood doesn't get to the brain no blood to the brain you're in trouble so really if you faint and these are obviously I would say professor trouble pretty primal qualities too I would say all mammals probably and didn't need to breathe and to regulate temperature and also reptiles and fans for the way they cope with that problem being Co burdensome so one could suggest that it's very likely that we've been in we've had these systems in this since pre Homo sapiens there many millions of years the idea that the human cerebral cortex I have got one here the human cerebral cortex which drives our intelligence is not affected by our emotions and passions is a very strange one because the central nervous system is actually built up gradually over millions of years with the earlier or with their sometimes called the limbic areas the very very old areas of the brain then accreting more and more brain tissue which ends up with our very eloquent cortex but the the areas of the brain that drive emotion go back millions of years and the idea that they do not have a command over our everyday activities is a strange one now the limbic areas that I just mentioned the limbic system the emotional brain is that sometimes called actually has direct highways into the autonomic systems that you just heard lesson Elias talking about so and you can recap what was being measured while Andrew and I were watching the Opera okay so as Profi said the autonomic nervous system is really beyond our conscious control autonomic autumn so it doesn't lie it's a good insight into emotions so what we were doing is we were looking at what your heart rate was doing what your blood pressure is doing also what your select sweat glands were doing throughout the course of the opera the sweat glands give a really good insight into how excited the autonomic nervous system gets and again the heart rate and blood pressure can be synchronized sometimes we also can diverge sometimes as well so what we wanted to do is look at your data and Allen's data act by acts and then also we gave you some event marker buttons yes and we leave slightly particular lately aroused exactly so when you felt that what you were experiencing really stirred some emotions in you we asked you to press those so that we also got snapshots acute windows into your autonomic activity that's right those are the real spine-tingling moments I understand that we did press our buttons I press six times and you press and press three times which is not say that I enjoyed it twice as much as you necessarily but one thing for interesting is it was one moment where we both pressed it exactly the same time and that's when it's the moment when Simon Boccanegra discovers that Maria is his daughter which is a very powerfully it is the sort of moment around which the Opera pivots is aware but I thought so so I mean I've got a daughter and that's only knew immediately start to think as well as I didn't drinks may I point to you and I think these stories do that they bring a blend you think about things in your own life sometime well there we are we did look as if we're in some very strange samba de profoundly me which is very unfortunate in theirs nocturnal lenses one doesn't look quite right with the eyes half-closed but it is radiant bliss I'll show you and I should point I'd rather the production we saw wasn't that one with platter Joe Domingo which is the one on TV but it was it was maybe sounds good it was absolutely magnificent Alan can you remember how you felt that at that moment I mean does does it recall when you hear that music does it fade Lee I don't think about I think the thing is um it's interesting listen you talk about music but there's something that comes from within you but you don't it you you know are familiar with that blood running cold feeling people call it we like tingling sensation inside your suddenly something something moves you that you're watching and so it does it doesn't it's not something you I'm thinking this I'm thinking this and now I feel like this you've suddenly feel unexpectedly moving and it's very really quite powerful nets oh dear Helen yeah that's me held at gunpoint made to watch op yeah we made to show off his moves about seven rushes some citation it yeah everything well and who can explain the orienting reflex I didn't country there yeah the orange reflex was first described by Pavlov in those famous studies yeah the dogs salivating and what what it is is that when we when Anna Alan experienced their you know strong emotional stimulus while he was really focusing all his faculties on coming to terms with the emotion his memories that were brought up at that stage his autonomic activity was then suppressed while this was going on so the classic example would be the rabbit in the headlights you know the huge stimulus bearing down on it and if it gets past the orang2 response and it engages his autonomic nervous system to get out the way of the car and so I guess what Allan's explaining really is he was caught in the emotional headlights of this young man in the Opera you can measure the sweat yes you can measure the blood pressure in the heart rate but you can you measure that frizzle that's the gooseflesh think that that genuine there the hairs on the back of the neck is that I'm actually trying to do that at the moment it's proving quite difficult because you know we've worked with a team of mechanical engineering students for quite some time to get the the kit right and you can get it right but then the problem comes as soon as you tell someone oh by the way this is going to measure your goosebumps it never happens because there's honestly a central component as well because it's it can be as well as being to do thermoregulation when you're cold and you're trying to attract he when it's involved in the motion so centrally driven from your thoughts yes and it can be fear it wouldn't be very ethical I suppose something to introduce a rhinoceros into the experiments trusted to put the fear of God into these into the subject yes I can understand be very difficult experiment to design but you'll get there you'll get your Nobel for it on if not you're ignorant about the eye closing one of my thoughts is is also as you say that it's to to distract you from and to focus you as well it's one thing because you can't close your ears I mean there'll be ridiculous obviously I know if you unless you were really hating the music if you're doing that but you close your eyes and you've already seen the characters so you still seeing them in in your head but but there is something deeply more focused about music with eyes closed yes but but I think Alan's observations of his own bodily responses are very interesting because what he described as the feeling it begins here and this is what you call a gut feeling yes and they're the main outflow to the guts as we've seen from these slides or other is the parasympathetic nervous system that sympathetic nerves the adrenals well but well I was thinking either hold of the gut Camille no yeah and and and so gut feelings are very very primitive feelings that come from the gut into that limbic system area of the brain and what is of course quite interesting is when you get a so many gut feelings that is when you will stop being able to speak so the emotional arousal particularly when it comes to tears rather than necessarily laughter but the tears you can't speak so again that's a good reason why I believe that from an evolutionary perspective these emotional responses to these events predated our ability to use a language now let's have a look at someone who really understands how this music is put together and gets the most out of an orchestra in order to put it in our ears and in our limbic systems and that's the maestro himself Antonia Capanna on the roll opera house who will explain a little bit about how Verdi wrote in seaman beacon of Bocanegra Verdi is a master of musical tension what do I mean by that well in this scene where father and daughter are reunited where Simon Boccanegra realizes that the girl he has in front of him is his daughter that he hasn't seen for 25 years he asks her a series of questions because he has a special feeling and listen how very uses a melody with short chords underneath but it's the use of silence that creates the tension he goes on this time using a semitone listen between the phrases that creates the sense of expectation he goes on yet another silence at this time really finding out music speeds up I left alone all before your orchestra explodes by they taught great moments in all our present no wonder audiences well their hearts explode like the characters on stage just just amazing the brilliant turn it's early but I've done I've done it thank you hands above your spine tingle at that moment at any point that is that thing I have it again yeah heads up then it goes up hearing on P Annan just still has that power over you did that explanation addley help you Alan and in terms of just seeing how the music is structured even even with the left and right hand taking the place of entire ATP's Orchestra well listening to him speaks like listening to a good teacher it is you wish you'd been your music teacher at school because it's completely engrossing understands what it's saying gets a liver so anybody with great expertise and great communicative skills is fantastic I think you're absolutely right and music is very often dull to forest you just buy those damn doctors whoever it was killed in them which brings us to the the these indices what but what exactly did we see we saw our heart rates our blood pressure our sweat and your sweat gland activity and yeah we looked at breathing as well so let's focus on sweat what a sweat tell us and sweat is a good measure of the sympathetic nerves of the autonomic nervous system like a pair of ham but but you can see my sweat that was actually dropped enormously didn't yep that's right and we we can see a baseline so that was before the upper start either in the rare develop blue yeah and went up straightaway yeah and dipped roughly the same times were think I was nervous that I might not like it yes and you were the opposite you knew you were going to love it yeah it was completely relaxed about anything really but then it goes up and in fact that's the sort of the last dot is just after the interval so maybe my sweat goes up a bit as it gets towards the end and it gets more look it comes to its you know emotional climax plus I've had an extra vodka inside me that's what would you say is your explanation of that how would you read that as to one I think firstly it's definitely the novelty for Alan you know a new experience something that he hasn't been through before because by the end is kind of back to baseline it's interesting act one what was happening with you you know the footage you looks almost in a state of bliss and we see that the nerve activity of your sweat glands is really dropping until you were rehydrated it is I mean then in acts two and three we see that it starts to increase again yeah but it's really interesting how you know you say you think your journeys in quite a hot person in terms of temperature but we see here that again your Telemachus if it doesn't really tell any lies who would like to take us through blood pressure so you've got you've got a PhD to learn so um I think I might be right in saying that Alan likes to keep a bit fit but even before the upper start it is baseline it was actually a little bit elevated perhaps and again this might be down to the anticipation of a new experience because then we see a steady state full acts by acts by the time we get to act three we see that there's quite a significant drop if you're the opposite of blood pressure on that's very interesting yeah whereas review we see again from sort of acts 2 onwards that you're really increasing the autonomic activity of the blood vessels yeah but neither of these just to save myself a visit to a daughter know that we're not at dangerous levels at this point oh you have a very good one next to me so I would say absolutely fine okay thank you within normal parameters anything I'll prescribe Steven is more pretty okay absolutely II know this is really interesting his heart rates something rather fascinating happened here and it's really quite extraordinary this is over the course of the evening what what happened with our heart rates so this was definitely the most interesting finding I think and I was really surprised by this when we went to the data so again we have a breakdown acts by active the the heart rate activity in you and Alan and we see that despite there being a difference of my ass go along she's here there's a real synchronization in the acceleration and deceleration throughout the Opera now this was really really unexpected I wasn't expecting at all to see it's so marked the synchronization some people some researchers have suggested this might be down in choir singing to perhaps the breathing patterns but they said this data might suggest that such an transferable to the audience this is amazing isn't it extraordinary idea and we can now notice that we've started to menstruate in cycle haven't we but they're truly is fascinating to think that the perhaps the whole audience if you'd wired them up would have settled it an essentially synchronized it doesn't make it any less beautiful to examine it those changes were driven by the emotional experience in you exactly know this you won't do impress ups you weren't running up flights of stairs those changes with purely down to what you're experiencing in the Opera yeah did that surprise you the idea that our hearts might work synchronizing that way yeah because you don't really notice no that's the whole point isn't it sorta no because you never do I wouldn't have said if you'd said to me your hearts beating 20 beats a minute faster Nell and it was half an hour I wouldn't do known that I felt tranquil and yeah I'll keep thinking about flamenco and Duende in flamenco oh yes as you encode dancers come into a state like all doing day where they're really not really thinking about what they're doing they're dancing also an automatic feeling yeah and that's I've been I got to spend quite often I've been to flamenco quite a lot the music and the singing and the one that all comes together and it speeds up as well as it sometimes goes back centuries and is extraditions it goes back and that and they achieve something there sometimes which is yes couldn't be done without the music though most of the rides and all kinds of focusing in all kinds of can also from all right the Mongolian places you have this extraordinary extraordin sense so right we'll actually see the moment of both show the the traces and and the moment where our hearts go in sync and please try not to laugh at doofuses we appear to be I could see that very clearly couldn't you that Alan knew just before me there and your eyes were closed but your heart rate had gone up so you clearly were it wasn't as if it was like you were lulled into any soporific snow no it's all quite clearly having a proper effect on you we have very happily someone all the way in Kansas City which i think is in Oklahoma not in Kansas or it could be in Kansas so how the confusing like that but it's a it's it's it's Joyce Jenner who's a mezzo-soprano who's currently about to perform in an hour's a time I think Joyce can you hear me hello there she's go back to back perform in the in the Capulets the Bellini opera and we'd love to hear from your perspective how you feel about the emotions that opera induces both because you obviously presumed me in your spare time occasionally go and see it but but you're actually unlike most of us often on stage performing it I tell you it's it's incredible of this afternoon conversation has been phenomenal my job when I'm onstage is that I can't help but feel these emotions because they're actually travelling through me I'm actually really feeling them I'm out about to die on stage in about three hours but I have to also somehow temper might the physiology of my body the anatomy so that I can actually still sink my heart rate does want to rise I'm of course sweating I'm feeling all this emotion but I have to distance it just enough so that everything remains completely calm at the same time so that I can breathe deeply and well and get the sound out to the audience yeah it's a really as you point out because apart for the LC obviously you've trained for many years to get to the state status and stage you are at and a lot of that involves technique and you have to be rigorous in your technique in your practicing and in the physical way you hold your body and in what in and in the production of the column of air that comes out of your mouth it always seems astonishing to me when this do two great singers like you that that the organ you're using is the same one I use too a pizza or something you know how can that be the same thing do you on stage feel aside from the the nervous excitement and the the thrill of pleasing an orchestra and being an audience and being engaged with an orchestra and fellow cast do you do you feel that the sort of emotions that your character feels and do you feel or is it always I always think of your next cue and watching the beat of the conductor which depends a little bit on where I am in the progress if it's a new role chances are I'm just thinking about technique because I'm trying to sort that out but for example I'm singing Romeo this afternoon here in Kansas City and I tell you I get to that death scene and because not technically I know what I'm doing I'm screaming to Juliet how can you leave me here like this and every night I have tears coming down my face and I I'm just enough of a professional that I know how the for some reason the body needs to release that for an emotional thing but I can still somehow juggle and keep the voice settle oh but it's if that's something that's taking years and years and years to balance right because that's it that's an old cheap tenors trick is to is to put a crack in the voice deliberately in the in the sort of st LeDoux BER type thing you know in Pelle Archie where they kind of almost it's the really good ones can do get away with it but you have to keep the more control you keep in a way the more emotional it becomes doesn't it because the audience feels it all the more but if you go and of course you can't break the tempo that the conductor is giving you know I'd be hit my mark I've got to hit the tempo I've got to make sure the voice is producing because my job is to give the emotion to the audience so if I indulge in that too much the audience is going to get to water down and filtered by this noise does it surprise you to know that for double Allen and I could be sitting watching a production of Simon Boccanegra and at some point quite fairly early point our heartbeats start to synchronize because my extraordinary half of me is completely astonished and the other half says well it's obvious because that's our music but it still is something that is completely extraordinary choirs they apparently seem to this happens this happens and you can probably explain this about choirs the explanation they gave to the choirs was that the the collection collective you know patterning of breathing in the same way to produce the the words really just leads everyone's you know harvesting phrasing yeah but as I say I'm not really sure that explains what happened in our study so we moved turned that that theory upside down because I can't understand wife singers are singing and taking the same breath and then singing same like and then taking the same breath and so on that it might them hearts might necessarily beat it together but that wouldn't make an audience's heart beat in sympathy and so finally do you think this idea of we're not trying to explain the mystery and the magic of opera music or of art but do you think these kind of experiences which can only get more advanced for example when we welcome you back to the Opera House I think you're going to do maria's to either aren't you and if by some chance technology allowed you to be monitored while you were performing wirelessly or maybe in a dress rehearsal you know so that you we could we could read you and your fellow performers with the word that would that interest you as long as it wasn't opening night yeah okay very fair response it's incredibly incredibly incredibly kind of you Joyce DiDonato very best of Taito for your performance and carry on with your breathing and warming up it we're very grateful to you for all the press coming to the Opera Ellen absolutely that kid by thank you wonderful yeah thank you joy mizuchi will be coming back from Maria's to have it and next summer and I think it's time to hear a little more explanation because I find it so inspiring I wish you'd do a whole series for BBC four or something hear from Tony Pepe Pepe on who again Papa handle again and this time he'll be talking about that a precise moment that made Alan and I respond in the way we did in duets like this one from Simon Boccanegra between Amalia and Gabrielle I adore know you have an exchange of similar phrases for instance she sings so si Dalaran corridor and he repeats when they talk of their impending nuptials and it creates a certain excitement the top well you get the idea but at one point Verdi has been all sun singing in unison and that change is significant so you're going from join together on a long note let's change then they sing together this unison going up to the big high note and then in unison again the voices the emotions the drama everything is in sync so of course we as audience members experience that too it's undeniable wonderful thank you Meister is that fantastic we now have a little bit of Viti because you may not remember the post-match report as it well we actually talk to each other after directly after seeing you don't I ask to you about your opinions then so we can we can go back in time there we go Simon Boccanegra for you yes it's not a happy ending but it's an opera that contains everything it contains politics and love and loyalty and betrayal and all the things you'd expect on good story right Ashford than you would you come again tell us please I'll be back that it's good news good it was I'm glad you appreciate really please oh we have a converted brilliant news if you did so you would come back there I have to say that I hate those night vision things things yeah now you know how Badgers fear when they watch nature I just haven't got me there at all that's not they go back in the den they put the telly on you go out now and do something yeah so you got it are you gonna go to we need you all so you think you'll see another operable I do I honestly do I don't we don't get at me now that you know I've got two small children and a busy diary yeah but I know you love football but remember there are far more prima donnas in football really yeah I want to know bets yeah we'd like to do it yeah that's very great um and we can ask mr. just shout out their suggestion as to which Opera House it's you next Magic Flute it's very good call a comic one so because it could be Falstaff could be done Giovanni's an opera buff I can't sort of cancers coming so that the Meistersinger that's a really long one but it is fantastic it's it's it's vods only comedy it has got jokes in it yeah that's a good joke it is Tosca a short one very good in fact Rigoletto is a brilliant choice what La Boheme which is beautifully short in fact you know it's longer to say that isn't it because I love vogner but the last of the Ring cycle go to devaron the twilight of the Gods is in three accent and the first act of good as ever is longer than the whole of Tosca and where do we think professors we take the experiment next I'll start with thee the you were about to be dr. ohn I'm sure it's big marked at the moment and hopefully it's putting me on the spot well at the moment as assumed in exploring emotions in patients with autonomic disorders right so that's where it's got role yeah to see how how their emotional responses compared to people with emotional disorders or dynamic wise and subjectively and it would be nice to see you know people are more emotional are they more susceptible to this kind of synchronization and also to test this in greater numbers now you know wire up more than two people in the audience and simultaneously hopefully with you know one or two of the singers as well to see you know they're they're actually seeing in their breathing pattern should be like best fit absolutely first of those how would you like and I and I fully agree in vector we've been we've been focusing on people with disorders because they tell us what happens normally but you know you to the examples we have absolutely brilliant in terms of knowing what happens in perfectly normal sorry forgive me maybe ultra normal subjects yeah in terms of in terms of changes which is very important and we are with our colleagues in fact going way way beyond because of technological advances so you can have a little chip for instance implanted under the skin or linked up to the year where we can measure all these variables we're getting to that stage and this could be used by telemetry so we don't even need wires we can find out what's happening from well afar so I think this would be the answer not just in the audience but also in those who are singing ready raises scarab H would be fantastic that so there's a lot to do we don't know if you're the wrong hands people I don't were reading my mind to Professor Trimble sort of sum up for you what your body view I believe in front of this audience Joyce DiDonato yeah offered herself as a subject she had no right and we're we're a team and we will through the Royal Opera House make contact and see we can wouldn't everyone it wouldn't be that's it we've really cover just about everything you've seen what opera can do to you physically each one of you will have a sense of what offer a music itself does to you emotionally what it means to in your private lives what it means to you in your partner what it means terms your memory and in terms of your intellect which is also not necessarily intended you'd be suspended you're allowed to think about it as well as to feel it but it seems that it's a kind of workout in terms of sweat and blood pressure and and all that kind of stuff so we want to thank Alan we want to thank you all for coming we want to thank everybody for watching this unique Twitter experience experience we want to thank you CL and imperial for their their mighty weights and basically to thank you for coming thank you and congratulation before we all depart there is a recent recent study that I could mention that I think will fill us all with hope it was conducted by scientists in Tokyo they inflicted music on mice I'm sorry it's obviously one of the things obviously against vivisection he went like this they in 15 music on mice with transplanted hearts they made them listen to everything from Verdi Mozart to Enya the results showed that the mice who listened to Verdi's La Traviata which as I've said is the world's most popular opera lived on average for 15 days longer than those who put up with any ax so it was the case of Orinoco no flow to the heart so they are if you want to live longer listen to opera thank you and good night you

Channel: Royal Opera House

Views: 344,352

Rating: 4.9367218 out of 5

Keywords: Royal Opera House, theatre, theater, Covent Garden, stage, Giuseppe Verdi (Author), Simon Boccanegra (Opera), QI, Alan Davies (Author), Stephen Fry (Author), Michael Trimble, Christopher Mathias, Andrew Owens, Joyce DiDonato (Film Actor), UCL, University College London (Organization), Science, Opera, art, arts, Twitter (Website), experiment, Physiology (Field Of Study), Autonomic Nervous System (Nerve), tingles, spine tingles, covent garden, test

Id: EVN4dShaZWk

Length: 44min 6sec (2646 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/chainsawvigilante]

Holy shit that beard! Excellent little program.

[u/lindymad]

Does anyone know how I can contact Mr Andrew Owens? At @17:16 he mentions some research he is/was doing regarding the tingling feeling and I think I may be able to help him, but I haven't been able to find any contact details for him.