Podcast appearances and mentions of naomi andr

As an art form, opera has proven to be simultaneously entertaining and relatable to diverse audiences, even though it has also been characterized by associations with whiteness and elitism. Naomi André (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is working to tell a more comprehensive and inclusive story of this genre by constructing a history of Blackness in opera from the nineteenth century to the present.

In Folge 19 unseres Podcasts spricht Mareike mit Gloria Behrens – Absolventin des A Kurses der HFF München. Sie hat 1967 ihr Studium begonnen und erzählt uns und euch davon, wie sie war, die frühe Hochschule, wie sie an die Hochschule gekommen ist und natürlich wie die Zeit 1968 in München so war.Gloria erzählt, dass sie als Kind im Ballett am Staatstheater getanzt hat. Unter anderem erwähnt sie die Rolle des kleinen Mohren im Rosenkavalier von Richard Strauss. Die Bezeichnung der Rolle hat sich leider bis heute nicht geändert und wird auch in vielen Inszenierungen so dargestellt. Dass man sich aber durchaus mit einer Aufarbeitung beschäftigt, zeigen Bücher wie Blackness in Opera von Naomi André.Horst Jankowskis Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt könnt ihr hier hören.Glorias Projekt heißt My Generation – die Webseite dazu posten wir bald.Das Kinderfilm Musical heißt Rosi und die große Stadt.Glorias Lieblingsdichterin ist Sarah Kirsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's first Friday so Rasheda Hatchett is back in the building! She shares with us some steps we can take to deal with loss and stay productive. Trae also sits with Naomi André, Seattle Opera's Scholar in Residence who gives us some insight on opera history and how Seattle Opera is moving differently and leading the industry regarding diversity on and off the stage.

Seattle Opera scholar-in-residence Dr. Naomi André, explores issues of orientalism, cultural representation, and musical exoticism in opera. French composer Camille Saint-Saëns wrote his biblical epic Samson and Delilah (1877) at a time when European powers were aggressively pursuing imperial expansion. As part of the cultural project of colonialism, Europe's artists became fascinated with the representation of non-European peoples, frequently turning to caricatures and stereotypes to justify European incursions. Such orientalist portrayals present numerous challenges when presenting these works in the 21st century. When does inspiration become exploitation? Who gets to tell stories about whom? And what happens when issues of gender, religious belief, and nation intersect with the power dynamics that underlie these works?

Join us for a conversation with Kira Thurman, author of Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and Seattle Opera scholar-in-residence Dr. Naomi André. Drawing on her experience as a classically trained pianist who grew up in Vienna, Austria, Thurman traces the sweeping story of Black musicians performing in Germany and Austria over more than a century. As musicians like Marian Anderson and Grace Bumbry broke barriers on stage and in concert halls, they found opportunities in German-speaking Europe that were denied to them in the Jim Crow-era U.S. In doing so, they also challenged categories of Blackness and Germanness and complicated the public's understanding of how music is tied to racial and national identity.

Dr. Naomi André, a celebrated musicologist and scholar, is a frequent contributor to the community discussions surrounding the new opera "Blue" and its production at Toledo Opera. In this conversation with WGTE's Brad Cresswell, Dr. André sheds light on where "Blue" not only fits into the traditional operatic canon, but how operas like this are directly relevant to today's societal issues of race relations, and point the way to the future of the art form itself. "Blue" with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Tazewell Thompson is being produced by Toledo Opera in August 2022, more information here: https://www.toledoopera.org/upcoming-performances/season-event/blue/. Toledo Opera is a sponsor of WGTE programs.

Dr. Naomi André, a celebrated musicologist and scholar, is a frequent contributor to the community discussions surrounding the new opera "Blue" and its production at Toledo Opera. In this conversation with WGTE's Brad Cresswell, Dr. André sheds light on where "Blue" not only fits into the traditional operatic canon, but how operas like this are directly relevant to today's societal issues of race relations, and point the way to the future of the art form itself."Blue" with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Tazewell Thompson is being produced by Toledo Opera in August 2022, more information here: https://www.toledoopera.org/upcoming-performances/season-event/blue/.Toledo Opera is a sponsor of WGTE programs.

In this podcast, which continues our Exploring the Operatic Canon series, Dr. Naomi André discusses the Italian origin of opera and the concept of the operatic canon, as well as changes and influences over the years and some of her joy as she looks forward to the inclusion of wonderful new works.

Towards a New Opera! Ep 4 | Dr. Naomi André - Ways of Seeing // Black Opera created by Alexander Gedeon design by Yuki Izumihara a co-production of Long Beach Opera & Social Convention --- for mature audiences --- This week author and scholar Dr. Naomi André joins us to discuss the continued use of blackface in 21st century opera, opera in South Africa, and all of the cognitive dissonances of race in American opera today. Dr. André is the author of “Black Opera: history, power, engagement.” Towards a New Opera! is a new podcast intended to engage discussion with diverse artists on the expanding possibilities of new American opera. What does a new opera look and sound like if classical music is not treated as a culturally 'superior' form? How can conceptual artists from outside the field be engaged in the 'public dreaming' of new approaches? Each is a ‘message in a bottle’ — with the dream of awakening new connections across vast cultural seas." Alexander Gedeon is a stage director and performer born and based in Los Angeles, working primarily in the field of contemporary opera. He is currently Long Beach Opera's Minister of Culture. — The Towards a New Opera! intro/outro theme is an interpolation of Aretha Franklin's 'Amazing Grace' with Philip Glass's 'Dance No. 1'. — RABBIT HOLES: The title of this episode is partially borrowed from the John Berger book and mini-series “Ways of Seeing” from 1971. Dr. André began a lecture of hers a while back citing this work — a feminist touchstone of understanding the presentation of the feminine in Western media. I encountered it in college and it had a profound effect on me. An obscure but highly recommended (and enjoyable) rabbit hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk Will Liverman’s new album “Dreams of a New Day” https://open.spotify.com/album/5fLcTLH7sr3J1s29wQwOyG?si=PHT5KmOjQ2asjjRH4OhyXg In this clip Sibo Bangoura plays a cora and sings in the Senegambian ‘griot’ tradition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdrPmZwsXiM The moment Winnie Mandela spoke to the crowd after the premiere of “Winnie the Opera” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tozZudTny2M I’m watching a video analysis of “The Death of the Author”… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9iMgtfp484 … but haven’t read the 8 page essay… YET https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf

They say you can’t go home again, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida knows it all too well. Captured from her homeland of Ethiopia and enslaved in Egypt, she falls in love with an Egyptian warrior. Aida is torn between her love for this man and her love for her home and, because it’s opera, she ultimately chooses the tenor. In “O Patria Mia,” Aida stands on the banks of the Nile and says goodbye to Ethiopia. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore what home means, and what it means to leave it behind. The Guests Soprano Latonia Moore has sung the role of Aida more than a hundred times. She made her Met debut in the role with a day and a half’s notice, and it launched her international career. As a Black soprano, she feels like she has joined the club of great singers who have taken on the role. Naomi André is a professor of Afro-American and African Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. She wrote her dissertation on Verdi’s operas and was blown away the first time she saw Aida at the Met. She thinks it’s amazing that a story about ancient Egypt still resonates today, and she still finds something new in the work every time she sees it. Poet and visual artist Mahtem Shiferraw is from Ethiopia and Eritrea, but now lives in Los Angeles. Coming to the U.S. as an adult, she had to completely rebuild her sense of identity and belonging, and her understanding of home. Growing up in Ethiopia, she went to an Italian school and acted in a non-opera production of Aida.

University of Michigan professor Naomi André is also Seattle Opera’s Scholar-in-Residence. For an intermission feature on “Seattle Opera Mornings on KING FM,” she discussed Verdi’s OTELLO and its 1967 premiere at Seattle Opera.

In this podcast discussing Il Trovatore, Dr. Naomi André explores - through letters between Giuseppe Verdi and librettist Salvadore Cammarano - the qualities of Azucena that make her one of the most complex characters in Verdi's operas. Dr. André is a professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women's studies, and the Residential College at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race in the US, Europe, and South Africa. This discussion was recorded on Saturday, September 19, 2020 as a part of LA Opera Connects' professional development series for teachers: Opera for Educators. (https://www.laopera.org/operaforeducators)

The most famous American opera opens with one of the most famous American songs: “Summertime.” The Gershwins’ haunting lullaby from Porgy and Bess is a simple tune with a complex story. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore not just the lyrics and music, but how Porgy and Bess came into being and the way it draws on the culture of the Gullah Geechee, descendants of formerly enslaved people living in and around South Carolina. Decoding two arias – "Summertime" and "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'" – the show finds uncomfortable contradictions as well as uncanny parallels between the real lives of the Gullah people and the characters onstage.  The Guests Soprano Golda Schultz debuted as Clara at the Met earlier this year, her first time singing in the U.S. with a cast full of people of color. She believes that when telling stories from underrepresented groups, they must be told from places of joy and not only areas of pain.  Naomi André knows better than most about the complicated racial history of Porgy and Bess. Still, the University of Michigan professor and author of Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement believes the show can be timely, relevant and moving. Victoria Smalls is a Gullah woman who grew up on St. Helena Island off Charleston, South Carolina. She works as the Director of Art, History, and Culture at the Penn Center in South Carolina, an institution dedicated to promoting and preserving African American history and culture. She's also a federal commissioner for the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Bass-baritone Eric Owens was initially reluctant to start singing Porgy, since so many African American singers have a hard time breaking out of that role. But even while reckoning with some of the controversial aspects of the Gershwins' opera, he has now sung the role for a decade and believes it is some of the most beautiful music written in the 20th century. 

Naomi André, a professor at the University of Michigan, has been a familiar presence at Seattle Opera for a couple seasons now; she helped us explore racial representation, casting, and what it means to support storytellers of color in 2018, as we were presenting Porgy and Bess, and last spring moderated a Carmen-related forum on “Decolonizing Allure: Women Artists of Color in Conversation.” Recently, she joined Seattle Opera as our first-ever Scholar-in-Residence. We’re delighted to have Dr. André on our team, and in this podcast she discusses her scholarly work—as well as Beyoncé, the exciting opera scene in today’s South Africa, Jessye Norman, and many other topics—with Alejandra Valarino Boyer, Seattle Opera’s Director of Programs and Partnerships.

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M.

Naomi André's innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today's audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet's Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André's central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music's place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women's Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Naomi Andre historical musicologist, tells us the story of the first opera by a Black American composer to be performed by a major opera company in the USA. This opera told the story of Jean Jacques Dessalines. She also sheds some light on some of the highs and lows of the realities of Blackness in the context of opera today.

When Laurence Olivier played Othello in 1964, he would spend two hours a night coating his body with black grease, dying his tongue red and using drops to whiten his eyes. Such transformations have long since been banished from television and theater as racially insensitive, but some variations on this have doggedly continued in opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, up until this week. The Met has said that for its season-opening new production of Verdi's Otello the lead tenor, Aleksandrs Antoneko (from Latvia and white), will not wear dark-colored makeup. The company says it is "old-fashioned" and a "tradition that needed to be changed." Many would agree that at a time in which other symbols of racism are being discarded, that kind of makeup must go too. But some critics of the decision have argued that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Moor is problematic too. Some say the real issue involves the lack of African-American tenors currently who can sing Otello. Lawrence Brownlee (Dale Pickett/Courtesy of the artist) In this podcast, we get three views on this. Lawrence Brownlee, who is one of today's most in-demand tenors, and who frequently appears at the Met and other companies, says he doesn't personally have a problem with a colleague wearing blackening makeup if it serves the characterization. However, if a singer "feels they're being humiliated or they cannot accurately or appropriately portray that character with makeup on – and it takes them out of their zone when performing – then I don’t think they should be forced to do it." But Naomi André, co-editor of the book Blackness in Opera and a professor at the University of Michigan, suggests that if blackening makeup is used, companies should include a disclaimer in a program note. Naomi André, co-editor of 'Blackness in Opera' (University of Michigan) "Have it discussed," she said. "Say that 'we realize that this has a very difficult history and for these reasons we've decided to use it or for these reasons we've decided not to use it.'" She adds: "What I think is most damaging is when there's no discussion about it, and then you get a situation where the cover of an artistic brochure shows somebody in blackface and then the rest of us are thinking, 'what's going on?'" (The Met's decision came after an outcry from some subscribers who took issue with a photo in its season brochure.)        Vinson Cole, tenor (Robert Schraeder) Vinson Cole, a tenor who has sung with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestras over three decades, believes that the issue can be overstated. He says the use of makeup can be done subtly and without the connotations of racist minstrelsy. "When somebody's singing Otello or Aida, you don’t have to use a great deal of makeup to make it so very heavily black," he noted. "You want to give the illusion" of a black or ethnic character.  Listen to our guest's views on Madama Butterfly and the future of audience expectations at the top of this page and leave a comment below: What do you think about the Met's decision?