If It’s in the Bible, It Can’t Be Opera: William Bradbury’s Esther, the Beautiful Queen, in Defiance of Genre

Composer William B. Bradbury wrote his sacred oratorio, Esther, the Beautiful Queen, in 1856. Thousands of performances took place in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the work became the most popular large-scale vocal score written by an American. Almost immediately upon its publication, staged interpretations of this work rapidly gained public favor. The prevalence of such productions raised sensitive issues that vexed U.S. cultural and religious life. Performers, critics, audiences, clergy, and Bradbury himself weighed in. Raconteur Eugene Wood (1860–1923) reflected upon the matter in 1906:

Bradbury did something which contributed more to the dissipation of the old fogy notion that we are here to attend to business and try to be good, than any other one thing. He composed “Esther, The Beautiful Queen.” It was all about Esther, and Mordecai, and the Israelites, and that rapscallion of a Haman. Being from the Bible, it took the people off their guard, don’t you see? . . . There is acting in it, and scenery, and costumes, and you paint your face, and the curtain goes up, and all like that, but it isn’t a the-ay-ter. Not at all.

It’s all singing. So it can’t be a the-ay-ter.

Well, if it’s acting and costumes, and the curtain goes up and down, and it’s all singing, it must be an opera.

No. It’s about the Bible, so it can’t be an opera.

Well, what is it, then?

It’s a cantata. Something entirely different from an opera or a play.¹

Wood’s remarks accurately reflect the debates inspired by secular interpretations of Esther. In particular, staged performances of the work both fueled and mirrored religious and cultural controversies common in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Critics objected to Bradbury’s use of secular song melodies and dance idioms in a work purported by him to be resolutely sacred. Moreover, U.S. religious leaders denounced musical performances of biblical narratives that included costumes and stage action associated with opera. Not surprisingly, the extraordinary success of staged productions of Esther only exacerbated these controversies. Ultimately, not only was Esther an enduring cultural phenomenon, but the work also serves as a significant prototype of more recent examples of religious musical theater.

Bradbury’s Esther, the Beautiful Queen

William Batchelder Bradbury (1816–68) began his formal music instruction in the early 1830s at the famous Boston Academy of Music, founded by Lowell Mason (1792–1872). In 1840 Bradbury moved to New York, where he served as a church organist, directed choirs, and taught singing classes. He shared partnerships in publishing and piano manufacturing firms, edited a popular music journal, and produced some fifty-nine tune books. During the years 1847–49, he traveled extensively in Europe and studied at Leipzig Conservatory. Today Bradbury is best remembered as a hymn composer and a handful of the several hundred hymns he wrote remain current in U.S. hymnals.² He also contributed enormously to the rise of music education in the United States, working alongside such luminaries as Lowell Mason and George Frederick Root (1820–95).³

Even without considering the sales of the dozens of tune books and several hundred hymns he published, Esther alone brought Bradbury considerable fame. An astounding 255,000 copies of the first printing were purchased, which mandated some twenty-four reprints.⁴ Eugene Wood fully appreciated the work’s universal appeal:

I suppose I am the only man in the United States of America . . . who not only has never taken part in ‘Esther, the Beautiful Queen,’ but who has never even witnessed a performance of that great work. . . . I suppose I ought to feel proud of the distinction, but I’m not. It makes me feel lonesome. You saw it, and I didn’t. You were in it, and I wasn’t.⁵

Bradbury wrote the music to Esther in a mere five days.⁶ His friend Chauncey Marvin...