Deborah Burton is an American music theorist, pianist, and academic. She is particularly known for her publications on Giacomo Puccini and his works, including Recondite Harmony (Pendragon, 2012) and the 2004 book Tosca's Prism: Three Moments of Western Cultural History. She has contributed articles to numerous music journals, including Nuova Rivista Musicale, Opera Quarterly, Studi Musicali, and Theoria.
Burton was one of the originators of the conference Tosca 2000 in Rome, marking the centenary of Puccini's Tosca and the 2010 Boston conference Fanciulla 100: Celebrating Puccini, marking the centenary of Puccini's La fanciulla del West.[3]
Burton, Deborah and Gregory Harwood (2012). The Theoretical-Practical Elements of Music, Parts III and IV, Studies in the History of Music Theory and Literature, vol. 5. University of Illinois Press, .
Burton, Deborah. (1994). "A Select Bibliography of Articles and Dissertations about Puccini and His Operas" in The Puccini Companion, William Weaver and Simonetta Puccini (eds). Norton. ISBN0-393-32052-9
Burton, Deborah (1994). "The Real Scarpia: Historical Sources for Tosca." Opera Quarterly, Vol. 10, no. 2
Burton, Deborah (1996). "The Creation of Tosca: Toward a Clearer View." Opera Quarterly, Vol. 12, no. 3
Burton, Deborah (2001). "A Journey of Discovery: Puccini's 'motivo di prima intenzione' and its applications in Manon Lescaut, La fanciulla del West and Suor Angelica". Studi Musicali, 2, pp. 473–499
Burton, Deborah (2004). "Orfeo, Osmin and Otello: Towards a theory of opera analysis", Studi musicali Vol. 33, no. 2
Podcasts from Opera and Society, an interdisciplinary conference held at Boston University April 18–19, 2008, including Deborah Burton's presentation "In his shoes: The Marriage of Figaro and the Movies" and her interview with Gottfried Wagner