Project MUSE®: The Opera Quarterly - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in The Opera Quarterly.daily12026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 18 (2002) through current issueLatest Articles: The Opera QuarterlyTWOProject MUSE®The Opera Quarterly1476-28700736-0053Latest articles in The Opera Quarterly. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Operatic Fictions: Technology, Identity, and Profit A Note from the Guest Editor
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985876
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Opera traffics in delusion—with its revelry of the spectacle, the innovativeness of illusion, and musical magic.1 It misleads, charms, seduces, and wrests spectators out of their immediate condition. Operagoers are primed to suspend their disbelief and venture into fantasylands. But suspending disbelief is a political privilege and, at times, a cultural convenience. Not everybody can enter into what Naomi André terms a "shared present" of opera viewership, where bodies commune to partake of stage artifice alongside the realities of present day.2 For some, there are material and cultural factors that foreclose this escapism. As much as this special issue is about "Operatic Fictions," it is also about escapism. It is
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallOperatic Fictions: Technology, Identity, and Profit A Note from the Guest Editor2026-03-25text/htmlen-USOperatic Fictions: Technology, Identity, and Profit A Note from the Guest Editor2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®176532026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25The Intimacies of Camilla Williams's "Black Butterfly": Negotiating Racial Fictions and Subjectivities on the Operatic Stage
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985979
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On the evening of May 15, 1946, following weeks of anticipation and controversy, the New York City Opera Company (NYCO, est. 1943) presented its first production of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Artistic director Laszlo Halasz had held auditions the previous year, but the relatively new company postponed production out of fear that it would be deemed unpatriotic by the American public, given that World War II was still ongoing. The war had resulted in hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians killed by the atomic bombs, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese-American citizens imprisoned in internment camps—the last of which closed in March 1946. To stage an opera featuring a Japanese protagonist might be
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallThe Intimacies of Camilla Williams's "Black Butterfly": Negotiating Racial Fictions and Subjectivities on the Operatic Stage2026-03-25text/htmlen-USThe Intimacies of Camilla Williams's "Black Butterfly": Negotiating Racial Fictions and Subjectivities on the Operatic Stage2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®1038292026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25Selling Integration: Opera, Race Relations, and Black Commodification at The Radio Corporation of America
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985980
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In 2020, George Floyd's murder at the hands of the Minneapolis police ignited a series of Black Lives Matter protests that commanded global attention. Despite COVID-19, protesters took to the streets, risking their lives and demanding that institutional racism be acknowledged. Although these protests were only a very loud instance of a series of demonstrations in the Movement for Black Lives, their points were grasped by several institutions.1 Opera companies across the United States are still responding to the incessant calls for change, diversifying their workforce, expanding their programming, and beginning conversations with their marginalized communities. New York's Metropolitan Opera (henceforth MET) is
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallSelling Integration: Opera, Race Relations, and Black Commodification at The Radio Corporation of America2026-03-25text/htmlen-USSelling Integration: Opera, Race Relations, and Black Commodification at The Radio Corporation of America2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®1817262026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25Terence Blanchard: An Oral History of Fire and Champion
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985981
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As a violinist with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra for more than twenty-five years, as well as a writer and historian of black classical music artists, I was intrigued by the career of Terence Blanchard. I was born in Kansas City, arguably America's "second city" of jazz, and I had long admired the New Orleans-born trumpeter's musical style as a performer, ever since he burst onto the scene in the 1990s. I have been a frequent visitor to New Orleans for its annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and have sat through many sets of traditional and New Orleans jazz in the WWOZ-FM jazz tent set up on the city's fairgrounds during the festival. Blanchard's group was always a popular draw there, as the New
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallTerence Blanchard: An Oral History of Fire and Champion2026-03-25text/htmlen-USTerence Blanchard: An Oral History of Fire and Champion2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®204122026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25Electrical Effects at the Paris Opera: Instrument Makers, the Arc Lamp, and Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1849 Le Prophète
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985982
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On April 16, 1849 Giacomo Meyerbeer's long anticipated opera Le Prophète was premiered at the Paris Opéra. An elaborate and expensive production, its overall costs came to a staggering 136,681.30 francs, roughly a quarter of which was paid for by the state, leaving the Opéra (and its composer) to assume significant costs to mount the work.1 The quality of the production matched the price tag. Décors were commissioned from four different artists: Charles-Antoine Cambon (1802–1875) and Joseph Thierry (1812–1866) designed sets for the first and fourth acts, Charles Séchan (1803–1874) for the second and fifth, and Édouard Despléchin (1802–1871) for the third. 680 costumes were sewn, 250 of which were entirely new.2 The
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallElectrical Effects at the Paris Opera: Instrument Makers, the Arc Lamp, and Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1849 Le Prophète2026-03-25text/htmlen-USElectrical Effects at the Paris Opera: Instrument Makers, the Arc Lamp, and Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1849 Le Prophète2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®1129482026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25An Audience of One: Watching Opera Online
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985983
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"The first edition of a new concept: watching operas together!" Thus reads the tagline of an event livestreamed on YouTube in November 2022.1 Hosted by YouTuber and early-career opera singer Mia Mandineau, this "opera marathon" featured back-to-back screenings of commercially released video productions of all three Mozart-Da Ponte operas. At over eleven hours in duration, the stream certainly lives up to its billing as a marathon, but what to make of the apparent boast that it invents the concept of an audience for opera? The claim, of course, needs to be read in context: Mandineau is clearly not referring here to opera spectatorship tout court but to an online audience and the possibility that this livestream
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallAn Audience of One: Watching Opera Online2026-03-25text/htmlen-USAn Audience of One: Watching Opera Online2026-03-252026TWOProject MUSE®1077702026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-03-25Hybridity in Translation: The Libretto and Surtitles of the Contemporary Chinese American Opera Paradise Interrupted
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987342
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Despite the well-documented financial challenges faced by performing arts organizations before and after the Covid-19 pandemic, North American opera companies have continued to invest significant resources in commissioning new operas. As a New York Times headline announced in 2023, "The Metropolitan Opera is Betting Big on Contemporary Opera."1 OPERA America's 2024 Repertoire Grants totaled $185,000 for seven North American opera companies ranging from Opera Parallèle to the Santa Fe Opera to develop "new American opera and music theater works."2 According to a pre-pandemic OPERA America report from 2015, "between the years 1995 and 2015 there have been 589 operatic works premiered by North American composers, with
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallHybridity in Translation: The Libretto and Surtitles of the Contemporary Chinese American Opera Paradise Interrupted2026-04-08text/htmlen-USHybridity in Translation: The Libretto and Surtitles of the Contemporary Chinese American Opera Paradise Interrupted2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1056262026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Vilhelmine's Virtuosity Reenacted: (Re) Presenting Femininity in Eighteenth-Century Comic Opera
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987343
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Upon first examining the handwritten scores of Chinafarerne, an eighteenth-century Danish comic opera by author and critic Peter Andreas Heiberg (1758–1841) and composer, violinist, and conductor Claus Schall (1757–1835), I was immediately captivated by the arias of the female protagonist, Vilhelmine. Her characterization is intriguing, in the first place because of her striking coloratura. Some passages extend over thirty measures, which feels at odds with her character, an innocent maiden, and with the stylistic expectations of a syngestykke, a Danish light genre popular at the time that blends spoken dialogue with song, in the style of Singspiel or opéra comique. The soprano faces other, potentially greater
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallVilhelmine's Virtuosity Reenacted: (Re) Presenting Femininity in Eighteenth-Century Comic Opera2026-04-08text/htmlen-USVilhelmine's Virtuosity Reenacted: (Re) Presenting Femininity in Eighteenth-Century Comic Opera2026-04-082026TWOProject MUSE®1075362026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-04-08Staging Opera in the Films of João César Monteiro
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988476
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Direct references to opera in cinema date back to the latter's earliest days. Jeongwon Joe and Rose Theresa refer to the "silent affinities" between the two media, emphasizing the fact that opera and film were connected even before the advent of synchronized sound.1 This connection strengthened following the arrival of sound cinema, and many films have either referenced pre-existing operas or have been strongly influenced by them.2 Such references can enact innovative and complex forms of intertextuality. I would argue that this is precisely the case with some of the operatic references in the films of João César Monteiro, which I explore in this article. The multimedia nature of cinema allows for diverse forms of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallStaging Opera in the Films of João César Monteiro2026-04-21text/htmlen-USStaging Opera in the Films of João César Monteiro2026-04-212026TWOProject MUSE®728172026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-04-21Lost in the House of Mirrors: Reflections on Opera Audiences
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988477
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The Opening Night at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan is often regarded as the most prominent event in Italy's cultural calendar.1 On December 7, 2011 La Scala opened its annual season with a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Both majestic and kitsch, as many national rituals are, the 2011 Opening Night featured a luxurious cast, including the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in her house debut, Bryn Terfel as Leporello, and Daniel Barenboim in his inaugural season as music director. It was also the house debut of the Canadian opera director Robert Carsen and set designer Michael Levine, with their first mise-en-scène created expressly for La Scala. And memorable their debut certainly was. Arguably, the most
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-18T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/148/image/coversmallLost in the House of Mirrors: Reflections on Opera Audiences2026-04-21text/htmlen-USLost in the House of Mirrors: Reflections on Opera Audiences2026-04-212026TWOProject MUSE®606002026-05-18T00:00:00-05:002026-04-21