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So far BLO Staff has created 11 blog entries.
1 02, 2024

Black Lives in 18th Century Europe

By |2024-02-01T10:59:09-05:00February 1st, 2024|

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) was born into one of the most contradictory eras of modern European history. On the one hand, the valorous ideals of the Enlightenment caught fire during Bologne’s lifetime, as Enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) called for the individual to pursue knowledge and to expand their worldviews. On the other, the horrifying principles of scientific racism, coupled with the booming market of the transatlantic slave trade, unleashed violence upon the Atlantic world in a manner that remains unprecedented. Joseph Bologne arrived into the world when, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes, “Enlightenment-era [...]

29 01, 2024

Bologne and Mozart

By |2024-01-29T14:12:11-05:00January 29th, 2024|

Did Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ever meet? Contemporaries, both prodigies and musical savants, one French and the other Austrian, Bologne and Mozart did indeed cross paths at least once in 1778, for about three months when they both were hosted in the French quartier, Chaussée d’Antin, in Paris. Mozart lived at the home of Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, who was also well acquainted with Bologne. Joseph Bologne lived across the courtyard, working as the music director of Madame de Montesson’s private theater, which the two residences shared. Bologne was over a decade Mozart’s [...]

29 01, 2024

Bologne – A Pioneer in the Classical Music Era

By |2024-01-29T13:21:27-05:00January 29th, 2024|

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de SaintGeorges, was one of the innovators that helped to define what is now known as the Classical Period in music – spanning approximately 1750 through 1820.  His earliest works were a series of string quartets and several sonatas written for keyboard and violin, composed in 1770-71. They demonstrate a distinct break from earlier Baroque Period conventions. His sonatas poised the keyboard and violin as equals, differing from the basso continuo Baroque style, which used a steady undercurrent of unobtrusive accompaniment. Bologne wrote some of the first-ever French string quartets, designing formal schemes that are now [...]

29 01, 2024

About: Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

By |2024-01-29T14:26:56-05:00January 29th, 2024|

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ legacy is broad. He was a biracial Frenchman, child prodigy as both a champion fencer and a virtuoso violinist, and later a celebrated and sought-after music director, composer, and officer in the French Revolution. He lived during a time that was full of innovation amid great political struggle and war across the Western world. Joseph was born on Christmas Day in 1745 on a coffee and sugar plantation on the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe to Georges Bologne de Saint-Georges and a teenaged, enslaved Senegalese woman named Anne, known as Nanon. Despite being married to [...]

24 01, 2024

Remembering to Forget: Myths of Love and Loss in Eurydice

By |2024-01-24T17:06:05-05:00January 24th, 2024|

“Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me!” Eurydice implores her soon-to-be husband, mere minutes into Act I. Foreshadowing the moment of the backwards look, the moment which centuries of artists have repeatedly sought to capture, her words prompt us to ask several questions. Does she want Orpheus to lead her out of the underworld? What do we assume about what she feels in that fateful glance, that instant which symbolizes—as Greek mythology does so well—the eternal and unchanging capacity of humans to err? Matthew Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s version of the ever-popular tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is, [...]

1 09, 2023

Re-orienting Madama Butterfly: From the “white gaze” to inclusive opera

By |2023-09-05T09:24:28-04:00September 1st, 2023|

About twenty years ago, I attended a production of Madama Butterfly at San Francisco Opera. Even now, I recall the state of cognitive dissonance I experienced as an audience member. I wanted to immerse myself in the voices of the opera singers and in the visually stunning set design, but couldn’t shake my discomfort with the representation of the Japanese characters. As one of the only Asian audience members, I felt self-conscious and complicit with the racial stereotyping I witnessed. Madama Butterfly is the sixth most performed opera in the world and has occupied a position of privilege within [...]

1 09, 2023

Cio-Cio-San at War: Madama Butterfly, World War II, and the Japanese American Experience

By |2023-09-05T09:23:39-04:00September 1st, 2023|

On December 2, 1944, a newspaper from Cody, Wyoming published a small notice about a performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the previous week. Oddly, the unsigned article does not contain any description of the performance itself. Instead, it dwells on the decision of the company’s director, Alfredo Salmaggi, to mount the opera, which had not been performed in New York City since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The article reports that Salmaggi had received “several letters of protests from relatives of service men” but also reminds that he [...]

3 04, 2023

The Divine Pen: Omar ibn Said and the Power of the Written Word

By |2023-05-01T10:29:35-04:00April 3rd, 2023|

The Divine Pen. Yelimane Fall. c.2007. by Jennifer J Yanco When I heard that the Boston Lyric Opera would be producing Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Ables’ new opera, Omar, I was both excited and intrigued. The opera Omar is based on the autobiography of Omar ibn Said, a learned man who, at the age of 37, was forced to leave his home in West Africa and brought to the US involuntarily to be sold into slavery.    I am a linguist by training, specializing in African languages. I am currently working with an international team of scholars on [...]

6 04, 2020

Norma Study Guide Preview

By |2021-09-20T13:51:22-04:00April 6th, 2020|

Don’t have time to read through the whole guide? Here’s 5 Know-Before-You Listen facts to read before you listen to the Norma broadcast. What’s the plot? The Druid priestess Norma is in love with Pollione, a Roman leading the army occupying their land in Gaul. She finds out he has betrayed her for another virgin of her temple, Adaglisia. Having two kids with Pollione, Norma struggles with her loyalty to love or her land. Real or myth?: The story is set against the Gallic Wars, as the Roman’s sought to conquer more and more land around 50 B.C. The Druids [...]

25 03, 2020

Norma Cookbook

By |2022-02-12T09:18:51-05:00March 25th, 2020|

Enjoy recipes from our Norma cast, creative team, and staff for you to try at home. Mix up these delicious dishes while listening to Norma on demand available March 29 at 3 PM.   Jonathan Burton, Pollione Bucatini Cacio e Pepe Pasta In honor of Pollione's Roman heritage   Ingredients Kosher salt 6 oz. pasta (such as egg tagliolini, bucatini, or spaghetti) 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed, divided 1 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper 3/4 cup finely grated Grana Padano or Parmesan 1/3 cup finely grated Pecorino   Recipe Preparation Bring 3 quarts water to a boil in a 5-qt. pot. Season [...]

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