Opera and Poison - A Secret and Enjoyable Approach to Teaching and Learning Chemistry

The storyline of operas, with historical or fictional characters, often include potions and poisons. This has prompted a study of the chemistry behind some operatic plots. The results were originally presented as a lecture given at the University of Minho in Portugal, within the context of the International Year of Chemistry. The same lecture was subsequently repeated at other Universities as a invited lecture for science students, and in public theaters for wider audiences. The lecture included a multimedia and interactive content that allowed the audience to listen to arias and to watch video clips with selected scenes extracted from operas. The present paper, based on the lecture, not only demonstrates how chemistry and opera can be related, but may also serve as a source of motivation and inspiration for chemistry teachers looking for alternative pedagogical approaches. Moreover, the lecture constitutes a vehicle that transports chemistry knowledge to wider audiences through examples of molecules of everyday life, with particular emphasis on natural products.