Emanuele Senici

Emanuele Senici is a Full Professor of Music History at Sapienza University of Rome, where he has been teaching since January 2008. Prior to this, he held significant academic positions at the University of Oxford as Reader in Musicology (2006-2007) and University Lecturer in Music (2000-2006), with additional appointments as Tutorial Fellow at St. Hugh's College. His academic career also includes a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford (1998-2000) and prestigious visiting appointments at King's College London (2009-2023) and Cambridge University (2023).

Senici earned his Laurea in Musicology from the University of Pavia (1993), participated in an Erasmus program at King's College London (1992), and completed his MA (1996) and PhD (1998) at Cornell University. His doctoral research focused on Mozart's 'La clemenza di Tito' and its reception in the first thirty years after its premiere.

His scholarly work centers on Italian opera of the long nineteenth century, with particular attention to issues of genre, gender, and the historiography of opera. Senici's research explores the intersection of music with broader cultural, political, and technological contexts, examining how opera functions both as historical document and living performance tradition. A significant portion of his recent scholarship investigates opera on screen and in digital media, analyzing how film and television adaptations transform operatic works and their reception.

Senici's most recent publications (2023-2025) demonstrate a continued focus on nineteenth-century Italian opera while expanding into new areas of media studies and cultural geography. His work consistently bridges historical musicology with contemporary theoretical frameworks, particularly in gender studies and media studies, showing how historical operatic works remain relevant through modern reinterpretations and adaptations.

• Leverhulme Visiting Professor (2023)
• Visiting Professor of Music, King's College London (2009-2023)
• Edward T. Cone Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2006)
• Jerome Roche Prize, Royal Musical Association (2002)
• Donald J. Grout Memorial Prize, Cornell University (1997)

As an educator, Senici has supervised numerous graduate students and served as Director of Graduate Studies at Oxford. His current teaching at Sapienza includes undergraduate courses on music history and graduate seminars on the medial history of musical theater. He has made significant contributions to academic service through editorial board memberships for major journals including Acta Musicologica, Opera Quarterly, and Il Saggiatore Musicale, and previously served as co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal (2003-2008).