This chapter follows the character of Carmen from her genesis in the middle of the nineteenth cen... more This chapter follows the character of Carmen from her genesis in the middle of the nineteenth century with Prosper Mérimée’s novella (1845-46) through Bizet’s opera (1875), the film adaptation of Carmen Jones (1954), the MTV hip hopera (2001), and the South African U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005). With a transnational lens, this chapter brings together the same story as it moves across the Atlantic from Europe to the United States to South Africa and becomes a focal point for looking at text and genre. The emphases are on the intricacies of representation across the parameters of race, gender, expressions of hypersexuality, class, and nation while they are juxtaposed and held in dialogue with each other.
This chapter places Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Warren Wilensky, and Mfundi Vundla,... more This chapter places Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Warren Wilensky, and Mfundi Vundla, 2011) in a larger comparative framework that includes the Western opera tradition, opera in the United States, and the representation of blackness in opera more generally. With a reading of postcolonial and post-apartheid theorists (for example, Homi Bhabha and the “unhomely,” Karin Barber and entextualization, and Sarah Nuttal’s entanglement), this chapter also draws upon the Global South (and global studies) along with transnationalism. This chapter examines events from the opera in Winnie Mandela’s life (torture, the Mandela United Football Club, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) as they are characterized musically and in the drama.
This chapter examines the song cycle (also thought of as a monodrama or solo opera) by composer W... more This chapter examines the song cycle (also thought of as a monodrama or solo opera) by composer William Bolcom and playwright/librettist Sandra Seaton, From the Diary of Sally Hemings. The chapter includes a discussion of the DNA, kinship, and social controversies over the interracial pairing of Jefferson, a founder of the United States as a nation, and Hemings, his slave and consort. Through an analysis of the compositional genesis of the work, the text, and the music, this chapter also explores what is at stake for thinking about the breakdown of black-white racial categories. Extended references are made to Saartijie Baartman (the South African “Hottentot Venus”) and Edward Ball, the descendent of the Ball plantation who looked up interracial relationships with slaves in his family.
This chapter introduces two case studies of “Black Otellos” and situates the author’s voice in th... more This chapter introduces two case studies of “Black Otellos” and situates the author’s voice in this project. This chapter outlines the historical background of race in the United States and South Africa around opera. The constructions of “downstaging black voices” and a “black shadow culture” in opera are introduced. Blackface, colorblind, and true-to-color casting decisions in opera are examined. The critical roles of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price in shaping a black presence in opera are discussed. Three rubrics for listening and analyzing opera across the chapters are presented: Who is in the story? Who speaks? and Who is in the audience doing the interpreting?
This chapter addresses Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess story as it was told in 1935 awash in minstrel c... more This chapter addresses Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess story as it was told in 1935 awash in minstrel characterizations and then adapted in 2011 on Broadway to rethink how the depth inherent in the original characters could be made more visible. This analysis fleshes out the larger view of black womanhood in the 1930s and the first decades of the twenty-first century. This chapter also explores the opera in terms of constructions of the folk, the Harlem Renaissance, and the efforts of black writers (Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, Harold Cruse, and James Baldwin) to come to grips with its negative stereotypes and celebrated opportunities for black performers in virtuosic roles.
This chapter examines a new analytical paradigm called “Engaged Musicology” that allows for readi... more This chapter examines a new analytical paradigm called “Engaged Musicology” that allows for reading opera as an art form that has potential for being a site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change. It is fleshed out in two real-life situations: a cutting-edge new production of Bizet’s Carmen (a Trans Carmen in prison) and a concert version performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The potential of an engaged musicological practice allows old and new, standard and underrepresented narratives to be voiced in opera. Such a practice would both invite new audiences into the opera house and present traditional opera goers with new realities.
The three essays brought together in this cluster are immersed in themes that characterize “Ameri... more The three essays brought together in this cluster are immersed in themes that characterize “Americanness” in the twentieth century. They provide a microcosm of critical issues that define opera in the United States during these first decades when the nation helped shape the creation of opera rather than principally being a site for importing European works. Although most of the composers discussed in these articles were born in Europe (Giacomo Puccini, Paul Hindemith, and Ernst Krenek) and only a few in the United States (Marc Blitzstein and George Antheil), all of them spent significant time in the United States, and all of the works discussed are either set in the United States, utilize American characters, or tied to important American themes.
This chapter explores representations of blackness in opera in relation to masculinity and morali... more This chapter explores representations of blackness in opera in relation to masculinity and morality. More specifically, it considers the changing codes of masculinity in leading male roles and how they are calibrated differently for white European characters and nonwhite characters with non-European ancestry. It also looks at the ways in which masculinity and heroism are brought together differently for black and non-black characters. In order to elucidate these issues, the chapter analyzes Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887), focusing on its references to getting the “chocolate” ready and the way Verdi dramatizes Otello's vicious murder of Desdemona. Four other operas written in the first half of the twentieth century, two of which feature white European title characters and the other two feature African American protagonists, are examined: Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925), Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1927), George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935), and Benjamin Britt...
ABSTRACT Positioned within a nexus of themes in early 21st-century South Africa, Winnie: The Oper... more ABSTRACT Positioned within a nexus of themes in early 21st-century South Africa, Winnie: The Opera reflects the nation's desire to re-define itself artistically after its brutal colonial and apartheid history. Through the subject matter of a living controversial woman in politics (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela), the use of English and isiXhosa languages along with video excerpts from the South African Broadcasting Corporation coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a musical language that includes traditional African music integrated with a western European operatic style, the opera brings together modern sensibilities that help express who South Africa is in the early millennium. In an analysis that positions Winnie in dialogue with traditional western European opera, this article also looks to opera in the United States a model for how stories about politics, race and ethnicity, and controversy are well borne out in opera as a genre. By highlighting the TRC in the beginning and finale, Winnie: The Opera presents new opportunities for South Africa and the world to deal with a horrendous past that wraps gender, politics, and nation together.
Across a few days from 28 April to 3 May 2011, a few audiences witnessed the performance of a num... more Across a few days from 28 April to 3 May 2011, a few audiences witnessed the performance of a number of firsts. The first full-length original opera by a black South African composer; the nuanced and powerful retelling of decades of struggle history in music; and, at the gala evening, the surreal presence of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela herself in the South African State Theatre, Pretoria, a venue she wryly referred to as a potential bombing target during the struggle. In what could seem to be an unlikely turn of events after the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, South African opera has blossomed into a re-invigorated and vibrant scene. Yet for what has now become a major new voice in opera (in less than a full generation), its history is unique. Unlike other countries on the African continent, South Africa has supported a continuing operatic culture that dates back to the early 20 century. Formally, it was a non-black venture within the colonial and apartheid systems where the primary patrons, participants, and audiences were descendants of British and Dutch colonials, Italian exiles from the Second World War (including former Italian prisoners of war), and a variety of expatriates from Europe and the United States. Opera theatres allowed whites only and the formal opera culture attained through necessary training programmes and apprenticeships were prohibited to blacks. The informal history of opera in South Africa – which the research behind this cluster of articles helps to document – is that black singers, composers, and audiences have had long, albeit limited, exposure to operatic music through choral societies, classical music in missionary church venues, and educational settings. Though blacks were not allowed to participate in state-sponsored operatic society, a black connection to opera developed. The beginning of the new millennium, less than ten years after the official end of apartheid, witnessed tremendous growth in this arena. Mzilikazi Khumalo’s pioneering opera Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu was commissioned by Opera Africa in Durban, and premiered in 2002, helped lead the way (Mhlambi 2015). Today we see the fruits of this activity as we witness the emergence of a South African black operatic culture. Black South African voices, bodies, and talents
<p>This chapter provides an overview of the participation of black people in opera in the U... more <p>This chapter provides an overview of the participation of black people in opera in the United States and South Africa. Themes include the practice and legacy of minstrelsy in both countries. For the United States, the focus explores the creation of an American operatic tradition outside Europe and one that features black composers and singers. For South Africa, the focus explores the experiences of Angelo Gobbato who worked in opera through the last decades of apartheid and into the new millennium with integrated casts and Neo Muyanga (Soweto-born composer) who was educated in Europe during the last decades of apartheid and has become a leading voice in the post-apartheid black opera scene. This chapter also discusses black opera singers and the Isango Ensemble.</p>
The early 19th century was a period of acute transition in operatic tradition and style, when tim... more The early 19th century was a period of acute transition in operatic tradition and style, when time-honoured practices gave way to the developing aesthetics of Romanticism, the rise of the tenor overtook the falling stars of the castrati, and the heroic, the masculine, and the feminine were profoundly reconfigured. These transformations resounded in operatic plot structures as well; the happy resolution of the 18th century twisted into a tragic 19th-century finale with the death of the helpless and innocent heroine - and frequently her tenor hero along with her. Female voices which formerly had sung en travesti, or basically in male drag, opposite their female character counterparts then took on roles of the second woman, a companion and foil to the death-bound heroine rather than her romantic partner. In "Voicing Gender", Naomi Andre skilfully traces the development of female characters in these first decades of the century, weaving in and around these changes in voicings ...
This is a book about thinking, interpreting, and writing about music in performance that incorpor... more This is a book about thinking, interpreting, and writing about music in performance that incorporates how race, gender, sexuality, and nation help shape the analysis of opera today. Case-study operas are chosen within the diaspora of the United States and South Africa. Both countries had segregation policies that kept black performers and musicians out of opera. During the civil rights movement and after apartheid, black performers in both countries not only excelled in opera, they also began writing their own stories into the genre. Featured operas in this study span the Atlantic and bring together works performed in the West (the United States and Europe) and South Africa. Focal works are: From the Diary of Sally Hemings (William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton), Porgy and Bess, and Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen). A chapter is devoted to the nineteenth-century Carmens (novella by Mérimée and opera by Bizet) and black settings in the United States (Carmen Jones, Carmen: A Hip Hopera) and South Africa (U-Carmen eKhayelitsha). Woven within the discussions of specific works are three rubrics for how the text and music create the drama: Who is in the story? Who speaks? and Who is in the audience doing the interpreting? These questions, combined with a historical context that includes how a work also resonates in the present day, form the basis for an engaged musicological practice.
This chapter follows the character of Carmen from her genesis in the middle of the nineteenth cen... more This chapter follows the character of Carmen from her genesis in the middle of the nineteenth century with Prosper Mérimée’s novella (1845-46) through Bizet’s opera (1875), the film adaptation of Carmen Jones (1954), the MTV hip hopera (2001), and the South African U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005). With a transnational lens, this chapter brings together the same story as it moves across the Atlantic from Europe to the United States to South Africa and becomes a focal point for looking at text and genre. The emphases are on the intricacies of representation across the parameters of race, gender, expressions of hypersexuality, class, and nation while they are juxtaposed and held in dialogue with each other.
This chapter places Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Warren Wilensky, and Mfundi Vundla,... more This chapter places Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Warren Wilensky, and Mfundi Vundla, 2011) in a larger comparative framework that includes the Western opera tradition, opera in the United States, and the representation of blackness in opera more generally. With a reading of postcolonial and post-apartheid theorists (for example, Homi Bhabha and the “unhomely,” Karin Barber and entextualization, and Sarah Nuttal’s entanglement), this chapter also draws upon the Global South (and global studies) along with transnationalism. This chapter examines events from the opera in Winnie Mandela’s life (torture, the Mandela United Football Club, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) as they are characterized musically and in the drama.
This chapter examines the song cycle (also thought of as a monodrama or solo opera) by composer W... more This chapter examines the song cycle (also thought of as a monodrama or solo opera) by composer William Bolcom and playwright/librettist Sandra Seaton, From the Diary of Sally Hemings. The chapter includes a discussion of the DNA, kinship, and social controversies over the interracial pairing of Jefferson, a founder of the United States as a nation, and Hemings, his slave and consort. Through an analysis of the compositional genesis of the work, the text, and the music, this chapter also explores what is at stake for thinking about the breakdown of black-white racial categories. Extended references are made to Saartijie Baartman (the South African “Hottentot Venus”) and Edward Ball, the descendent of the Ball plantation who looked up interracial relationships with slaves in his family.
This chapter introduces two case studies of “Black Otellos” and situates the author’s voice in th... more This chapter introduces two case studies of “Black Otellos” and situates the author’s voice in this project. This chapter outlines the historical background of race in the United States and South Africa around opera. The constructions of “downstaging black voices” and a “black shadow culture” in opera are introduced. Blackface, colorblind, and true-to-color casting decisions in opera are examined. The critical roles of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price in shaping a black presence in opera are discussed. Three rubrics for listening and analyzing opera across the chapters are presented: Who is in the story? Who speaks? and Who is in the audience doing the interpreting?
This chapter addresses Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess story as it was told in 1935 awash in minstrel c... more This chapter addresses Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess story as it was told in 1935 awash in minstrel characterizations and then adapted in 2011 on Broadway to rethink how the depth inherent in the original characters could be made more visible. This analysis fleshes out the larger view of black womanhood in the 1930s and the first decades of the twenty-first century. This chapter also explores the opera in terms of constructions of the folk, the Harlem Renaissance, and the efforts of black writers (Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, Harold Cruse, and James Baldwin) to come to grips with its negative stereotypes and celebrated opportunities for black performers in virtuosic roles.
This chapter examines a new analytical paradigm called “Engaged Musicology” that allows for readi... more This chapter examines a new analytical paradigm called “Engaged Musicology” that allows for reading opera as an art form that has potential for being a site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change. It is fleshed out in two real-life situations: a cutting-edge new production of Bizet’s Carmen (a Trans Carmen in prison) and a concert version performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The potential of an engaged musicological practice allows old and new, standard and underrepresented narratives to be voiced in opera. Such a practice would both invite new audiences into the opera house and present traditional opera goers with new realities.
The three essays brought together in this cluster are immersed in themes that characterize “Ameri... more The three essays brought together in this cluster are immersed in themes that characterize “Americanness” in the twentieth century. They provide a microcosm of critical issues that define opera in the United States during these first decades when the nation helped shape the creation of opera rather than principally being a site for importing European works. Although most of the composers discussed in these articles were born in Europe (Giacomo Puccini, Paul Hindemith, and Ernst Krenek) and only a few in the United States (Marc Blitzstein and George Antheil), all of them spent significant time in the United States, and all of the works discussed are either set in the United States, utilize American characters, or tied to important American themes.
This chapter explores representations of blackness in opera in relation to masculinity and morali... more This chapter explores representations of blackness in opera in relation to masculinity and morality. More specifically, it considers the changing codes of masculinity in leading male roles and how they are calibrated differently for white European characters and nonwhite characters with non-European ancestry. It also looks at the ways in which masculinity and heroism are brought together differently for black and non-black characters. In order to elucidate these issues, the chapter analyzes Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887), focusing on its references to getting the “chocolate” ready and the way Verdi dramatizes Otello's vicious murder of Desdemona. Four other operas written in the first half of the twentieth century, two of which feature white European title characters and the other two feature African American protagonists, are examined: Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925), Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1927), George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935), and Benjamin Britt...
ABSTRACT Positioned within a nexus of themes in early 21st-century South Africa, Winnie: The Oper... more ABSTRACT Positioned within a nexus of themes in early 21st-century South Africa, Winnie: The Opera reflects the nation's desire to re-define itself artistically after its brutal colonial and apartheid history. Through the subject matter of a living controversial woman in politics (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela), the use of English and isiXhosa languages along with video excerpts from the South African Broadcasting Corporation coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a musical language that includes traditional African music integrated with a western European operatic style, the opera brings together modern sensibilities that help express who South Africa is in the early millennium. In an analysis that positions Winnie in dialogue with traditional western European opera, this article also looks to opera in the United States a model for how stories about politics, race and ethnicity, and controversy are well borne out in opera as a genre. By highlighting the TRC in the beginning and finale, Winnie: The Opera presents new opportunities for South Africa and the world to deal with a horrendous past that wraps gender, politics, and nation together.
Across a few days from 28 April to 3 May 2011, a few audiences witnessed the performance of a num... more Across a few days from 28 April to 3 May 2011, a few audiences witnessed the performance of a number of firsts. The first full-length original opera by a black South African composer; the nuanced and powerful retelling of decades of struggle history in music; and, at the gala evening, the surreal presence of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela herself in the South African State Theatre, Pretoria, a venue she wryly referred to as a potential bombing target during the struggle. In what could seem to be an unlikely turn of events after the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, South African opera has blossomed into a re-invigorated and vibrant scene. Yet for what has now become a major new voice in opera (in less than a full generation), its history is unique. Unlike other countries on the African continent, South Africa has supported a continuing operatic culture that dates back to the early 20 century. Formally, it was a non-black venture within the colonial and apartheid systems where the primary patrons, participants, and audiences were descendants of British and Dutch colonials, Italian exiles from the Second World War (including former Italian prisoners of war), and a variety of expatriates from Europe and the United States. Opera theatres allowed whites only and the formal opera culture attained through necessary training programmes and apprenticeships were prohibited to blacks. The informal history of opera in South Africa – which the research behind this cluster of articles helps to document – is that black singers, composers, and audiences have had long, albeit limited, exposure to operatic music through choral societies, classical music in missionary church venues, and educational settings. Though blacks were not allowed to participate in state-sponsored operatic society, a black connection to opera developed. The beginning of the new millennium, less than ten years after the official end of apartheid, witnessed tremendous growth in this arena. Mzilikazi Khumalo’s pioneering opera Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu was commissioned by Opera Africa in Durban, and premiered in 2002, helped lead the way (Mhlambi 2015). Today we see the fruits of this activity as we witness the emergence of a South African black operatic culture. Black South African voices, bodies, and talents
<p>This chapter provides an overview of the participation of black people in opera in the U... more <p>This chapter provides an overview of the participation of black people in opera in the United States and South Africa. Themes include the practice and legacy of minstrelsy in both countries. For the United States, the focus explores the creation of an American operatic tradition outside Europe and one that features black composers and singers. For South Africa, the focus explores the experiences of Angelo Gobbato who worked in opera through the last decades of apartheid and into the new millennium with integrated casts and Neo Muyanga (Soweto-born composer) who was educated in Europe during the last decades of apartheid and has become a leading voice in the post-apartheid black opera scene. This chapter also discusses black opera singers and the Isango Ensemble.</p>
The early 19th century was a period of acute transition in operatic tradition and style, when tim... more The early 19th century was a period of acute transition in operatic tradition and style, when time-honoured practices gave way to the developing aesthetics of Romanticism, the rise of the tenor overtook the falling stars of the castrati, and the heroic, the masculine, and the feminine were profoundly reconfigured. These transformations resounded in operatic plot structures as well; the happy resolution of the 18th century twisted into a tragic 19th-century finale with the death of the helpless and innocent heroine - and frequently her tenor hero along with her. Female voices which formerly had sung en travesti, or basically in male drag, opposite their female character counterparts then took on roles of the second woman, a companion and foil to the death-bound heroine rather than her romantic partner. In "Voicing Gender", Naomi Andre skilfully traces the development of female characters in these first decades of the century, weaving in and around these changes in voicings ...
This is a book about thinking, interpreting, and writing about music in performance that incorpor... more This is a book about thinking, interpreting, and writing about music in performance that incorporates how race, gender, sexuality, and nation help shape the analysis of opera today. Case-study operas are chosen within the diaspora of the United States and South Africa. Both countries had segregation policies that kept black performers and musicians out of opera. During the civil rights movement and after apartheid, black performers in both countries not only excelled in opera, they also began writing their own stories into the genre. Featured operas in this study span the Atlantic and bring together works performed in the West (the United States and Europe) and South Africa. Focal works are: From the Diary of Sally Hemings (William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton), Porgy and Bess, and Winnie: The Opera (Bongani Ndodana-Breen). A chapter is devoted to the nineteenth-century Carmens (novella by Mérimée and opera by Bizet) and black settings in the United States (Carmen Jones, Carmen: A Hip Hopera) and South Africa (U-Carmen eKhayelitsha). Woven within the discussions of specific works are three rubrics for how the text and music create the drama: Who is in the story? Who speaks? and Who is in the audience doing the interpreting? These questions, combined with a historical context that includes how a work also resonates in the present day, form the basis for an engaged musicological practice.
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