Humanizing “Alzheimer's” at the Opera: The Balance between Reductionist and Person-Centered Themes in Strawberry Fields

Alzheimer's disease has emerged as a major theme in recent motion pictures, literature, theater, and visual arts, but has not been a topic of significant import in the music world. Strawberry Fields, a one-act opera about a woman with mild dementia who wanders into the John Lennon memorial in Central Park expecting to see a Verdi opera, offers a surprisingly strong critique of reductionist approaches to brain aging, while also exploring themes central to the person-centered movement. This article contextualizes the decades-old debate between reductionism and person-centered dementia care, and explores how the opera balances elements of both movements.