Eva Van Daele is a doctoral researcher studying contemporary opera and music theatre at Ghent University. She received her master’s degree in Art History, Musicology and Theatre Studies from the same university. During her studies she was an intern at the dramaturgy department of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp and Ghent). Her observation of the creation process of Chaya Czernowin’s opera Infinite Now (Ghent, 2017) initiated the doctoral project titled Distorted Characters: The Discrepancy Between Character and Singer in Twenty-First-Century Opera. This project combines methods used in musicology, theatre studies and performance studies to examine the tension between the phenomenal body, the performer and the evocation of the fictional character in new operas.