Even with centuries of classical music available to us, Black composers and their works are still underrepresented, both on the opera and concert stage. It’s time we celebrate and bring in the voices of Black composers who have helped influence our musical landscape! In February, we celebrate Black History Month, a time for us to honor the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history. Even though we are only highlighting five composers in this blog post, there have been hundreds of notable Black composers throughout American history, and thousands more we may never have the opportunity to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

“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, [...]

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a busy man. A fixture on the musical scene of eighteenth-century Paris, he might be found seated in the violin section of the orchestra Le Concert des Amateurs; performing the solo part of his many virtuosic violin concertos; directing a theater; or composing a string quartet, a symphony, or an opera. (And this is to say nothing of his astonishingly varied extramusical pursuits as a champion fencer, a soldier, and a political thinker.) Bologne’s atypical status – he was a Black composer in an overwhelmingly white art form, and he was accomplished in [...]

Dear friends,  As the curtain has closed on our fall Season, I find myself reflecting on the shared moments we have had these past few months. I am continually struck by the power of opera to create an atmosphere of connection, whether to speak to complex historical moments, prompt a belly laugh, or celebrate the bonds of family and friendship.  Some of my favorite highlights of our Fall season include:  Our largest audiences at Madama Butterfly since our 2016/17 Season  Over 2000 people engaging with our Butterfly exhibit, lectures, and partnership programs  Nearly 1000 student and community attendees at [...]

La Cenerentola begins with a radical act of kindness. In the opening scene, Alidoro, tutor to the prince Don Ramiro, knocks on the door, dressed as a beggar and asking for food. While her stepsisters want to send him away, Angelina (Cinderella) gives him bread and coffee. In the fairytale world, we’d all do the same. But what does this act look like in our modern world? If a stranger knocked on your door, begging for something to eat, what would you do?  Set in modern-day Boston, our new production of La Cenerentola allows us to explore the traditional themes in Cinderella [...]

There are approximately 3,000 different versions of the Cinderella story from many cultures worldwide, dating back over 2,000 years with roots in ancient Greece and China. In fact, it follows one of the seven major basic story arcs: “rags to riches.” In this archetype, described in a book by Christopher Booker, the protagonist is poor, in that they lack wealth, beauty, love, or power. They find what they seek, lose it, and then gain it back again. In the case of the Cinderella story, the society within which the story is set is defined by a social stratification that [...]