Humanities Forum: Daphne Harrison Lecture with Naomi André

Daphne Harrison Lecture

Opera’s New Realism: Expanding Narratives and Representation

Featuring UMBC’s Jubilee Singers under the direction of Janice Jackson

Since its beginnings, opera as a genre has explored “real” portrayals. As opera begins to cater to more diverse audiences, performances today frequently embrace a broader mission that engages social justice in the movements around #MeToo, Queer and Trans spectrums, and Black Lives Matter. In this joint concert-lecture, Naomi André will explore these themes in operas coming out of diasporas involving Blackness.

Biography: Naomi André is the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor in the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Professor Emerita at the University of Michigan in Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Residential College. Her publications include the books Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement and Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera and co-edited collection African Performance Arts and Political Acts and Blackness in Opera. She has worked with opera companies and symphonies, and is a founding member of the Black Opera Research Network (BORN).