Dreaming in Ensemble How Black Artists Transformed American Opera

A revelatory new account of Black innovation in American opera, showing how composers, performers, and critics redefined the genre both aesthetically and politically in the early twentieth century. The inauguration of a "golden age" in Black opera is often dated to 1955, when Marian Anderson became the first Black singer to perform in a leading role at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Yet Anderson's debut was actually preceded by a rich Black operatic tradition that developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Lucy Caplan tells the stories of the Black composers, performers, critics, teachers, and students who created this vibrant opera culture, even as they were excluded from the genre's most prominent institutions. Their movement, which flourished alongside the Harlem Renaissance, redefined opera as a wellspring of aesthetic innovation, sociality, and antiracist activism. Caplan argues that Black opera in the early twentieth century had decidedly countercultural ambitions. In opera's sonic grandeur and dramatic maximalism, artists found creative resources for expressing the complexity of Black life. The protagonists of this story include composers Harry Lawrence Freeman and Shirley Graham, whose operas boldly interpreted Black diasporic history; performers Caterina Jarboro and Florence Cole-Talbert, who both starred in the racially fraught role of Aida; and critics Sylvester Russell and Nora Holt, who wrote imaginatively about the genre in the Black press. Yet Caplan also focuses on the many Black students, amateurs, opera house staff, and listeners who contributed indelibly to opera's meanings. With the creation of new companies, choruses, and audiences, opera not only circulated in the Black public sphere but itself became a public sphere with radical potential.

Über den Autor / die Autorin

Lucy Caplan is Assistant Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her essays on classical music have appeared in the New Yorker online, Symphony, San Francisco Classical Voice, and Opera News.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Lucy Caplan
• Verlag: Harvard University Press
• Inhalt: Buch
• Produktform: Fester Einband
• Erscheinungsdatum: 25.02.2025
• Thema: Geisteswissenschaften, Kunst, Musik > Musik > Allgemeines, Lexika
• EAN: 9780674268517
• ISBN: 978-0-674-26851-7
• Anzahl Seiten: 336
• Themen: Cultural History, Music, Social Movements, Civil Rights Movement, MUSIC / History & Criticism, cultural identity, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Opera, Performance Theory, Performance Studies, Marian Anderson, African American Culture, Classical Music, HISTORY / African American & Black, Performance Analysis, cultural criticism, Artistic Innovation, musical composition, Performance Practice, Black Aesthetic, Musical history, Black Arts Movement, black classical music, political music, musical innovation, artistic representation, racial representation, black cultural studies, sylvester russell, imani perry may we forever stand, karen valby the swans of harlem, samuel floyd the power of black music, national negro opera company, daphne a. brooks liner notes for the revolution, the martyr opera, black opera companies, treemonisha, theodore drury, Musical Activism, willie ruff call and response, sissieretta jones, black performance, eileen southern the music of black americans, black operatic counterculture, joseph horowitz classical music in america, black opera, joseph horowitz george shirley dvorak’s prophecy, aida verdi, black composers, joshua bennett being property once myself, opera studies, musical heritage, tom tom opera, opera criticism, musical politics, kristina r. gaddy rhiannon giddens well of souls, desegregation opera, porgy bess, caterina jarboro, camilla williams, guthrie ramsey race music, madame jones, azalia e hackley, blackface in opera, Shirley Graham, nina sun eidsheim the race of sound, henry lawrence freeman, cultural performance, american opera history, operatic tradition