Maria Purciello is an assistant professor of music history and literature.  She holds a Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology from Princeton University, where she specialized in early modern Italian opera. 

Dr. Purciello’s research interests focus on the development of the operatic genre in the seventeenth century, with particular emphasis on the musical language of comedy in mixed-genre opera.  Her interdisciplinary approach draws heavily on cultural and intellectual history, as well as on literary and theatrical traditions, in its exploration of early modern intersections of music, poetry, drama and dance.  In addition to her work on early operatic and vocal repertories, Dr. Purciello’s scholarly interests include general opera studies; aesthetic history; reception history; and gender studies, with a special focus on American women in music. 

Dr. Purciello has presented her research at a number of national and international conferences including meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music and the International Baroque Biennial, and she has been an invited speaker at Cambridge University.  She is a contributor to the revised New Grove Dictionary of American Music and the encyclopedia  Women and Music in America Since 1900.  Currently, she is working on several articles exploring the relationship of comedy with religion, allegory and madness in early Italian opera.

Prior to coming to the University of Delaware, Dr. Purciello taught at the College of the Holy Cross, Gettysburg College and West Chester University.​