DRAMA 255 - Design for Opera - Drama - Research Guides at University of California Irvine

Introduction

Remember to turn on UCI's VPN to access any of the digital resources from UCI Libraries if you're not on campus/connected to the campus network. More information here: https://www.lib.uci.edu/connect

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has an excellent introduction to Opera. In addition to basic information about the historical development of the art form, they provide many links to scholarly definitions and introductions to key concepts in opera, such as libretto and aria; different forms of opera, like Opera buffa and Opera seria; alongside biographies of important composers like Vincenzo Bellini, Giacomo Puccini, and Giuseppe Verdi, as well as librettists like Pietro Metastasio and Lorenzo Da Ponte. It also includes information about individual operas, including their stories, how they historically fit into music history, and how they fit into society. Examples include Aida, Carmen, Salome, and Wozzeck.

You might also be interested in a brief operatic timeline, which includes brief items on 100 opera premiers throughout history with a link to their complete articles with all the information you might find helpful.

The above links are just the tiniest bit of information available in New Grove. If you have questions related to opera, there's a good chance you can find an answer there. Search and explore!

Watch & Listen

Opera in Video This link opens in a new window
Streaming video of full-length opera productions.
Medici.tv This link opens in a new window
Streaming video of concerts, operas, ballets, music documentaries, and masterclasses with globally famous musicians. Content is regularly updated as it normally includes performances from European music summer festivals and annual music competitions.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Stream music from major classical record labels, such as Sony Classical. Music is primarily focused on Western art music (i.e., classical music), but some music from non-Western traditions can also be found here. Useful factual information can be found in the digitized liner notes to better contextualize the music you are listening to.

Other than the performance videos in the above databases, you might also be interested in several documentaries that explore the making of an opera, such as:

BIPOC Opera

To discover Black composers, the International Dictionary of Black Composers is a MUST. It's divided into two volumes, and because it's online, it's easy to do a keyword search for "opera" to quickly discover a wide range of Black composers who have worked in this medium.

International Dictionary of Black Composers, vol.1 (Abrams-Johnson)
International Dictionary of Black Composers, vol. 2 (Johnson-Work)
- NOTE: to search within these volumes, use the search icon on the left side of the page, not on top right
- Examples of composers who wrote for opera include: Scott Joplin, Ulysses Kay, Julia Amanda Perry, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and William Grant Still.

The streaming, two-part documentary Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera, is available to watch from the following links:

Black Opera by Naomi Andre
Call Number: *ebook*
ISBN: 0252050614
Publication Date: 2018-05-04
From classic films like Carmen Jones to contemporary works like The Diary of Sally Hemings and U-Carmen eKhayelitsa, American and South African artists and composers have used opera to reclaim black people's place in history. Naomi André draws on the experiences of performers and audiences to explore this music's resonance with today's listeners. Interacting with creators and performers, as well as with the works themselves, André reveals how black opera unearths suppressed truths. These truths provoke complex, if uncomfortable, reconsideration of racial, gender, sexual, and other oppressive ideologies. Opera, in turn, operates as a cultural and political force that employs an immense, transformative power to represent or even liberate. Viewing opera as a fertile site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change, Black Opera lays the foundation for innovative new approaches to applied scholarship.
I Dream a World: The Operas of William Grant Still by Beverly Soll
Call Number: *ebook*
ISBN: 9781557287892
Publication Date: 2005-03-30
William Grant Still (1895-1978) dreamed of a world in which his eight operas-for him the ultimate form of musical expression-would be heard in the major opera houses in the United States, devoting most of his career toward the pursuit of this goal. The first part of I Dream a World creates a context for Still's operas and explores commonalities among them, including structural elements and musical characteristics. The second part traces the research, composition, and perform-ances of the operas as a way of documenting the history of the composer and his contributions to American opera. Although I Dream a World is not intentionally biographical, it is very pers-onal. It is more than the story of William Grant Still's love of operatic music, of the libretti that reflect his own life and philosophy, and of the world he dreamed through his work. It opens a window on Still the man as well as on Still the composer that offers important insights into the social milieu of this pioneering figure.
Blackness in Opera by Naomi André (Editor)
Call Number: *Physical book*
ISBN: 9780252036781
Publication Date: 2012-02-23
Blackness in Opera critically examines the intersections of race and music in the multifaceted genre of opera. A diverse cross-section of scholars places well-known operas (Porgy and Bess, Aida, Treemonisha) alongside lesser-known works such as Frederick Delius's Koanga, William Grant Still's Blue Steel, and Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga! to reveal a new historical context for re-imagining race and blackness in opera. The volume brings a wide-ranging, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary approach to questions about how blackness has been represented in these operas, issues surrounding characterization of blacks, interpretation of racialized roles by blacks and whites, controversies over race in the theatre and the use of blackface, and extensions of blackness along the spectrum from grand opera to musical theatre and film.
Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience by Wallace McClain Cheatham
Call Number: *Physical book*
ISBN: 9780810831476
Publication Date: 1997-03-06
Conversations with ten prominent African-American operatic artists.