Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera

Caplan (music, Worcester Polytechnic Inst.) details what she calls a Black operatic counterculture that both thrived and struggled in juxtaposition to the prevailing dominant white artistic milieu of 1890-1955. She focuses chiefly on the United States, with brief asides on how singers fared in Europe. Alongside familiar names such as Scott Joplin, the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and Marian Anderson, Caplan’s exhaustive research and unearthing of previously hidden characters provide much food for thought of what might have been had these performers, composers, and opera companies not faced overt racism and definitively segregated societies. At the same time, they attempted to make their own valuable contributions to the growing operatic canon. Extensive contemporary quotes from critics, educators, and musicians center the narrative, while the expressive photographs add immediacy.