Metropolitan Opera Research Articles

Gustav Mahler: tragic life, mysterious illness, early death : Could intensive care medicine have saved him today?

Gustav Mahler was a composer of the late Romantic period, one of the most famous conductors of his time and, as opera director, one of the most important reformers of musical theatre. Mahler's life, illnesses, death and dying are little or not at all known to many. Which illnesses determined Mahler's life? Could his early death have been avoided? From today's point of view, could modern intensive care medicine have helped him? A detailed analysis of Mahler's diseases was performed using scientific databases (medline, pubmed). All published articles were examined in detail. Gustav Mahler was born in 1860 in Kalischt (Bohemia) and learned to play the accordion and piano at an early age. He studied music at the Vienna Conservatory from 1875 and completed his composition studies in 1878. Kapellmeister positions followed in several cities, from 1887 at the Vienna Court Opera and from 1908 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mahler suffered from many illnesses, especially tonsillitis and haemorrhoids. In 1907 he was diagnosed with a mitral valve defect, in 1911 he developed bacterial endocarditis caused by streptococci, as a result of which Mahler died in Vienna in 1911. His life was marked by personal and health tragedies. Mahler was an outstanding personality who left behind an extensive oeuvre. Among the compositional highlights are his 10 symphonies and the song compositions. Recurrent streptococcal infections led to mitral valve disease and endocarditis, the consequences of which caused Mahler's untimely death. Today's modern cardiology and intensive care medicine could have prolonged his life, but unfortunately this was not possible at the time when he was diagnosed with endocarditis.

REARRANGED: An opera singer’s facial cancer and life transposed Kathleen Watt

In lyrical prose, with musical allusions, clinical references, and a bit of comic relief, Rearranged follows Kathleen Watt's plunge from the operatic stage into the netherworld of hospital life—its indigenous creatures, its peculiar language, its signposts of the mysterious human condition—through the devastation of cancer, and out the other side. Kathleen was a New York opera singer at mid-career, with a steady, lucrative chorus job at the Metropolitan Opera and solo gigs elsewhere, anticipating her best year ever. Instead, a vicious bone cancer blew her plans to smithereens, along with her face. She had to let everything go. Bit by bit, through a brutal alchemy of lethal toxins, titanium screws, and infinite kindness, she discovered new arrangements for old pieces, in a life catastrophically transposed. Not only a heart-wrenching medical odyssey but also, ultimately, a joyous personal journey of transformation.

Reading O’Neill Creatively: Perspectives and Offerings

Reading O’Neill Creatively: Perspectives and Offerings

Buckra: Whiteness and Porgy and Bess

Abstract Questions of race have been central to an understanding of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), yet the opera’s portrayal of whiteness remains an aspect hidden in plain sight. While focusing on a Black community living under Jim Crow segregation, the work also features five white characters—a Detective and two police officers, a Coroner, and a lawyer—whose actions affect the lives of the people of Catfish Row in three often overlooked sections of the opera. Through close readings of the score, literary antecedents, and recorded as well as live performances, this article examines the relational role that whiteness plays in the compositional architecture and production history of Porgy and Bess. To show how the opera’s complex social dynamics are embedded in its musical structure, I employ an interdisciplinary approach combining musicological analysis with critical race theory, which pinpoints racial formation as a key component of Gershwin’s score. The article’s central analysis of the score reveals nuanced portrayals of Jim Crow race relations, highlighted by both multilayered expressions of white supremacy and powerful moments of Black resistance. These nuances, however, depend on reading the opera in its complete state, yet the three Black/white exchanges are often heavily altered in performance. To further understand how staging these scenes can affect their meanings, I investigate several key productions from across the opera’s history. Concluding with the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019–20 production, I reflect that the depictions of police brutality, white supremacy, and Black resistance in Porgy and Bess are more painfully relevant today than ever before.

Spatial Reconfigurations of Power: From Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor to Verdi’s Falstaff Staged by the Metropolitan Opera, New York (2013)

Spatial Reconfigurations of Power: From Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor to Verdi’s Falstaff Staged by the Metropolitan Opera, New York (2013)

Music & Poetry

The following conversations with contemporary classical composers demonstrate how music and poetry speak much the same language, and even understand themselves in each other's terms regarding rhythm and sound, time and structure, address and listeners, recitals and recitation. Kate Soper, Matthew Aucoin, and Seth Parker Woods are three very different American composers working today. Soper also writes her own libretti—syncretic texts that engage classical and medieval verse and contemporary literature. An excerpt of her recent work, Romance of the Rose, is included here. Aucoin, an erstwhile poet, whose Eurydice was performed this season at the Metropolitan Opera, has set to music poems and other writings by Walt Whitman, Paul Celan, and Jorie Graham. Woods, a cellist and performance artist, often interweaves archival recordings and live poetry recitation on stage, while also engaging visual arts. The work of all three composers is set to be featured this year at the 76th Ojai Music Festival in Ojai, California. (American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC, co-founded by Aucoin, is the first collective to be chosen as the festival's music director.) These discussions consider the spoken word, voice types, and silence; lecture-performance, the academy, canons, and avant-gardes; the interplay between history, material texts, and graphic notation; in addition to the creative cycle of dreaming, composition, and decay.Geoffrey Lokke

Unfinished Poetry

Unfinished Poetry

The Magic of Beverly Sills

The Magic of Beverly Sills

Opera, Sound Recording, and Critical Race Theory

This review essay considers the relationships among opera, sound recording, and critical race theory, and explores them at a moment when these fields are beginning to converge. One of my concerns will be the recent and ground-breaking studies and collections on opera and race by Naomi Adele André (2017, 2019), Kira Thurman (2012, 2019), Pamela Karantonis and Dylan Robinson (2011), and Mary I. Ingraham, Joseph K. So and Roy Moodley (2016). Another will be the neglected history of opera and sound recording; notable scholars here include Karen Henson (2020), Robert Cannon (2014), and Richard Leppert (2015). Finally, I will focus on the thought-provoking analyses of race and sound by Alexander Weheliye (2005), Brian Ward (2003), Jennifer Lynn Stoever (2016) and Nina Sun Eidsheim (2019). There are obvious connections among these three bodies of scholarship, yet these connections have not yet been clearly identified and explored.
 Although many scholars have come to embrace opera as a material and embodied phenomenon, the artform’s dissemination, analysis, and enjoyment through sound recording is still overlooked as a site of enquiry, especially its potential as a fertile site of inquiry about identity. To overlook the issue of identity in relation to recording is to perpetuate the belief that recordings are primarily documents of performance practice. It ignores the army of technicians who invisibly craft the acoustic object, many of whom are historically white and male. This review essay seeks to address this neglect and to suggest some ways in which the processes of making and consuming opera recordings is intimately related to whiteness and anti-Blackness—but also to Black possibility. In what follows, I cast a broad net, ranging widely and at times unexpectedly. I begin with some recent events in American musicology and in the New York operatic scene; then, turn to a consideration of some of the scholarship just mentioned; and finally conclude with a brief discussion of a specific recording, the Metropolitan Opera’s “live” sound recording of the 2019 production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Representations in Vocal Repertoire

This paper seeks to understand representations in repertoire diversity found in audition selections for Carnegie Mellon University, the National Student Auditions hosted by the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Wolf Trap Opera Company summer program auditions, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. Various forms of data collection and the ubiquitous use of social media have highlighted equity disparities in the treatment of minority groups. The singing community, like all music-makers, must reconcile past inequalities and adapt current practices based on inclusion rather than exclusion. Analysis of these selections is compared with demographic data from members of the National Association of Schools of Music and the U.S. Census Bureau. By amalgamating these various forms of evidence combined with interdisciplinary framing, this paper: 1) provides a framework of systematic issues facing minorities in vocal studies and performance; 2) develops a theoretical understanding of the musical canon; 3) evaluates the current content of the vocal musical canon; 4) displays representational disparities between canonic vocal works and the populations singing them, and; 5) highlights the need for change in current practice to remain equitable for future generations of singers. While systematic choices in repertoire selection may seem insignificant in the short term studies have shown that minority students viewing representations of themselves in positions of power have positive impacts on their growth and the likelihood of entering and studying in the field. Shifts in current practice are critically necessary for vocal studies to remain relevant and inclusive for future generations.

The specificity of the interpretation of Rodelinda’s pa rt from G. Handel’s opera “Rodelinda”: interpretological approa

Statement of the problem. Among the questions that arise, let us single out those that will form the basis of the proposed article devoted to women’s parts in the opera “Rodelinda”: HIP traditions and staging strategies; vocal roles and their possible modifications / transformations under the conditions of specific directing and performing solutions. Analysis of recent scientific publications shows that ‘Handeliana’ is currently very voluminous. Thus, the works of W. Dean (1969), J. Knapp (2009) and C. Hogwood (2007), which have been republished several times, are considered thoroughly; L. Silke (2014) summarized the experience of predecessors and presented new dimensions of scientific understanding of Handel’s legacy. Fundamental are the studies by L. Kirillina (2019). The problem of performing vocal music of the Baroque era has been actively discussed in the works of I. Fedoseev (1996), N. Harnoncourt (2002), G. Kaganov (2013), M. Burden (2009), A. Jones (2006), О. Kruglova (2007), G. Konson & I. Konson (2020). The purpose of the article is to single out the main parameters of the baroque performance of women’s parts in G.F. Handel’s opera “Rodelinda” taking into account the performing traditions and modern trends. The research methodology is focused on the concept of “authentic performing strategy” (Yu. Nikolaievska, 2020), positions of comparative interpretology (Ch. Zhiwei, 2012) and interpretative approach, aimed at studying the specifics of the performance versions. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the application of an interpretive approach to the study of G. F. Handel’s operas. Results. In the 1938 recording (conducted by G. Leonhard), Rodelinda was performed by the famous Cecile Reich, in 1959, 1973 – by Joan Sutherland (in London and Netherlands productions). Closer to the authentic versions is the one performed by Sophie Danneman (1996); there is also a famous recording of 2005 with Rene Fleming (Metropolitan Opera), who was brilliant as an actress (which is required by the plot), but she admired and “played” her voice a little, which does not quite correspond to the principles of authenticity. One of the stars of the Glyndebourne Festival (1998) was the performer of Rodelinda’s part – Anna Caterina Antonacci, who performed her part with the necessary psychological and vocal accents, but, perhaps, somewhat dry and removed, which is why the listener is also removed from the heroine’s tragedy. In 2011 N. Harnoncourt recorded “Rodelinda” (in the title role – Danielle de Niese, who owns the entire arsenal of means inherent in baroque performance). Lauren Woods (recording of the 2016) is one of the most famous performers of the baroque repertoire. Critics have noted her perfect articulation, acting ability and “impressive vocals”. Simone Kermes, who critics call “the mad queen of the Baroque”, is distinguished by bright and temperamental performance, especially incomparable in the interpretation of baroque operas. Conclusions. From the interpretive point of view, mastering the expressive system of Baroque vocal performance traditions, in particular the art of vocal improvisation and ornamentation, consistent with the artistic context and directorial decision, can broadcast for the modern listener the affects and meanings of Handel’s music. The established features of baroque style are marked (affect, which is usually concentrated in such positions as tempo-rhythm, tonality, text, syntax of the melody) and performance (timbre, dynamics, intonation of the melodic line, ornamentation). Rodelinda’s part has been shown to require the ability to switch from one affect to another fairly quickly. In the analyzed interpretations, modern singers (D. de Nies, J. Sutherland, S. Kermez, L. Woods, A. K. Antonacci) practically do not allow themselves to be free, but seek to follow the principles of authentic performance, which is manifested in dynamic, agogic elements, various timbre colors arias (aria of revenge, duet-consent, aria of lamento), the ability to improvise.

The Circumstances of Colour: The Jim Crow Translation of Jonny spielt auf

This article examines the American premiere of the German opera Jonny spielt auf as a form of what I call Jim Crow translation. As originally written and composed by Ernst Krenek, the opera centres on Jonny, a Black jazz musician, who disorders the logic of European cultural superiority. Although thoroughly modern in its original German staging, using stereophonic radios and film projectors, Krenek’s appropriation of Blackness relied on blackface baritones to play Jonny. When the opera came to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the history of minstrelsy and the legal system of Jim Crow haunted the production. While Jonny was depicted as thoroughly cosmopolitan and modern in Krenek’s conception of the opera, the American production, under the management of Giulio Gatti-Casazza, attempted to turn Jonny into a white vaudevillian in blackface, a publicity stunt that brought the opera further attention under the guise of protecting American morals against a narrative of interracial sexual desire. Though Krenek created an opera based on the value of Black modernity, Gatti-Casazza displayed American racial anxieties through the opera’s promotion. The proposed revisions to the text, through which racialist regimes demonstrated their power over cultural production, reflect the role that translation can play in reinforcing the colour line.

A Wagnerian Battle for Souls: Parsifal and the Crisis in American Protestantism, 1882–1904

The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal in December 1903 stirred what was arguably the first American religious controversy over an artistic event to claim national attention in the twentieth century. Although the outcome was predictable – the protests appeared only to fuel box office success – the significance lies in what this controversy reveals about the music drama's most ardent opponents and supporters at a key moment in American religious history. The 1903 Parsifal controversy unfolded in the midst of a crisis in American Protestantism, as conservative establishment Protestants defended their weakening hold on American culture, and their theologically liberal brethren viewed that same culture as both a source of spiritual inspiration and a cause for redemption. Drawing primarily upon accounts published in the New York press, nationally circulated periodicals (including strongly partisan contributions to the debate by The Musical Courier), and the writings of several prominent Protestant clergy and lay leaders, this reception study argues that the religious controversy surrounding the 1903 Parsifal production was a substantive skirmish in this American Protestant crisis, and brought forward competing interpretations of the music drama which highlighted the cultural implications of what had been, until that point, largely a theological dispute. Conservative response fastened onto elements of the drama found to be sacrilegious, while liberal response was conditioned by its kinship to the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Kunstreligion, and a broad view of redemption that extended beyond the individual soul to the artwork and the artist, and to all of culture.

Hitting the Right Notes: Cataloging, Collections, and Collaborative Communication

ABSTRACT George Darden, long an assistant conductor and accompanist at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, was for several decades the “preparation pianist to the stars,” including Domingo, Horne, Pavarotti, Fleming, and many others. When Darden’s health failed in retirement, he felt urgency about placing his extraordinary collection with some institution, but finding the right recipient proved to be a challenge. The authors succeeded in bringing his collection to the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG). This article covers the George Darden Project, documenting a collaborative approach to working with an important donor on the acquisition of his library of music scores and archival materials. Themes addressed include “role play” and “improvisation” between music catalogers and archivists in service of donor and collection development; explaining the efficacy of item-level cataloging to donors concerned about how their materials will be accessed and used; and approaches to communication with donors, including the ethics of negotiation with one who is terminally ill and some strategies for overcoming difficulties.

Ein(Stein) on the Beach (in Egypt): ‘Syncopated Time’ and the Formation of a ‘Continuous Present’ in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten

In her 1935 lecture Plays, Gertrude Stein identifies a problem at the heart of the theatrical experience, that “your emotion concerning [the] play is always either behind or ahead of the play at which you are looking and to which you are listening” (Stein 58), creating an emotive and cognitive asynchronicity between the audience and the work, which she terms “syncopated time” (Stein 58). At the heart of this disconnect is her observation that “plays are either read or heard or seen” (Stein 59); the audience’s difficulty navigating this trialectic relationship is largely responsible for their desyncing from the emotional time-sense of the work. As the theatrical medium involving perhaps the most complex interplay of reading, hearing, and seeing, opera is an excellent subject for the application of Stein’s theories.
 
 This paper applies Stein’s questions of cognitive perception and emotional time to Akhnaten, Philip Glass’ third opera (which recently received its Metropolitan Opera premiere), in order to explore how the work navigates the problems which Stein identifies. This paper will argue that Glass’ iterative and ‘minimalist’ compositional style creates a synthesis of reading, hearing, and seeing to create a ‘continuous present,’ allowing the audience to remain in emotive and cognitive synchronicity with the work, and thus preventing them from falling into ‘syncopated time.’ In this way, contemporary opera offers novel approaches to the performative relationship between a work and its audience.
 Works Cited
 Stein, Gertrude. “Plays.” Writings and Lectures 1911-1945, edited by Patricia Meyerowitz, Peter Owen, 1967, pp. 58-81.

Terrors of Theory: Critical Theory of Terror from Kojève to Žižek

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Paris on November 13, 2015, the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, was performed widely at public commemorations around the world as an expression of solidarity with the people of France.1 It was reportedly sung by Muslim community leaders in Paris, at a football match between England and France in London, and by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. According to the New York Times' report of the last event, “The audience stood. Many sang, drowned out by the chorus and opera singers onstage. And when it was over, there were cheers, and…

Staging (or Not Staging) Ovid for Modern(ist) Self-Fashioning

For ninety years, a variety of sources (from 20th century encyclopedias and biographies to postwar scholarship and Wikipedia) reported that Alberto Savinio’s Persée premiered in 1924 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. However that ballet, written in Paris in 1913 for Michel Fokine’s choreography, was never performed on stage. This article investigates the origins of such ‘fake news’ and shows how it spread in various languages up until today. It links Savinio’s 1913 Persée to Fokine’s 1924 Medusa, a shorter but similar ballet that did indeed premiere at the Met, but to music by Tchaikovsky. Drawing on dispersed documents, newspaper clippings, and archival material, we show that, in the Twenties, both Savinio and Fokine distorted the facts about Persée and Medusa in the media, and we argue that they did so in order to self-fashion as modern artists adapting to two opposite cultural systems: fascist Italy and interwar America.

“Guarda un po”: Seductive Visuality in Remediated Opera

To articulate the phenomenon I call seductive visuality, I begin with a kiss—or, rather, the suggestion of a kiss. The moment comes from the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcast of L’elisir d’amore in 2012. It occurred at the conclusion of “Prendi, per me sei libero.” After the final note of her declaration of love, Adina (Anna Netrebko) grabbed Nemorino (Matthew Polenzani) for a full-throttled kiss. The blocking (which I had seen “in the house” at an earlier performance) was simple: Adina’s fervent embrace toppled the couple onto the ground.1 But on the day of the broadcast, the designated cameras (under the direction of Live in HD veteran director Gary Halvorson) failed to follow the pair in their tumble, leaving them out of frame for a moment. Eventually the couple stood and reappeared. Netrebko and Polenzani held their embrace for applause, and we saw (in a close-up) Netrebko’s lipstick smeared across her chin. This telltale smear suggested we had missed something thrilling in that moment of absence— no feigned “stage kiss,” but the “real thing.” The lipstick smear was visible for just an instant, before Polenzani leaned forward to wipe it away, while Netrebko bit her lips, trying to keep from laughing.

Genre Liederabend in creative practice by J. Kauffmann

Genre Liederabend in creative practice by J. Kauffmann

The Impostor Syndrome from Luxury Consumption

AbstractThe present research proposes that luxury consumption can be a double-edged sword: while luxury consumption yields status benefits, it can also make consumers feel inauthentic, producing what we call the impostor syndrome from luxury consumption. As a result, paradoxically, luxury consumption may backfire and lead consumers to behave less confidently due to their undermined feelings of self-authenticity. Feelings of inauthenticity from luxury consumption may arise because consumers perceive luxury as an undue privilege. These feelings are less pronounced among consumers with high levels of chronic psychological entitlement, and they are reduced when consumers’ sense of entitlement is temporarily boosted. The effects are robust across studies conducted in the lab and in field settings such as the Metropolitan Opera, Martha’s Vineyard, a luxury shopping center, and the Upper East Side in New York, featuring relevant participant populations including luxury target segments and consumption contexts including consumers’ reflections on their actual past luxury purchases.