This course looks at the mature works of Richard Wagner and Giacomo Puccini in the contexts of (1) their own internal geographies and implicit global ideologies, (2) the operas' immediate reception, with particular focus on early performances in North and South America, Africa, India, and East Asia. We will consider how burgeoning technologies of rapid long-distance transit such as the train and ocean liner made possible a new kind of mobile operatic practice, with exchange of singers, staging materials, and scores around the world. Students will develop a critical analytical vocabulary that allows them to participate in ongoing interdisciplinary conversations about the global and (post-)colonial world, in ways that are strengthened and amplified by close engagement with the operatic text and its staging. Weekly topics include musical representations of the earth and deep historical time, indigeneity, nationhood, global pitch standardization, and colonial relationships. The syllabus features readings by Sloterdijk, Walton, Aspden, Liao, Gallimore, Hesselager, and Roos.