This study is devoted to music drama, which with its formal diversity was the dominant theatrical genre in German-speaking countries between 1680 and 1740. The study focuses on the problems thematized in contemporary discourses on opera in connection with the declared intention of theatre to have a direct effect on the senses. Central to this perspective are the issues posed by the concerted and contradictory impact of the arts and the senses they appealed to, the changes in the functions of the sense of taste and of touch, and the role of the senses in ceremonial contexts.