A Beginner's Guide to Opera

A B E G I N N E R ’S G U I D E TO O P E R A

A B R I E F H I STO RY O F O P E R A

The oldest opera still performed today is Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, written in 1607. During the Baroque period from 1600–1750, Italian aristocracy wanted to recreate the great classical dramas from ancient Greece and Rome. Such stories provided the ruling elite with a strong connection to the supernatural. When asked to write an opera for Grand Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, Monteverdi thought that Orpheus, the Greek hero of music, would be of great interest to his audience. Monteverdi’s opera brought to life Orpheus’s dramatic journey to the underworld in an effort to save his love, Euridice. The premiere of L’Orfeo was a great success, and Monteverdi emerged as someone who could use music to not only propel a narrative but also deeply affect an audience.

Morris Robinson as the Grand Inquisitor and Eric Owens as King Phillip in Verdi’s Don Carlo.

While Monteverdi got his start composing opera for the ruling elite, he also helped bring opera to the public. Opera’s emotional stories created a frenzy in Venice, Italy, towards the middle of the 17th century. No fewer than nine public opera houses opened during this period as the public wanted more opera that reflected the culture of the time. Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea (1642) is a great example of this desire. Poppea tells the story of one of Rome’s most evil rulers, Emperor Nero, and his love affair with Poppea, his ambitious mistress. Monteverdi’s opera premiered in Venice, and Poppea’s sensational and bawdy story perfectly matched Venetian interests while creating a gripping and emotional drama.

The 18th century, known as the Age of Enlightenment, was the next great period of political and cultural change in Europe. People were talking about new forms of government and organization in society, especially the developing middle class. As society changed, so did opera. Composers felt the need to reform opera and move away from the complexity of the Baroque style and wanted to instead write music that was simpler and more focused on pure, raw emotion.

Christoph Willibald Gluck was one of the first to achieve this with his opera Orfeo and Euridice (1762). Gluck’s music had a freedom that evoked the unaffected expression of human feelings. While Gluck’s opera told the same story as Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, his music brought new life to the narrative that better reflected audiences’ tastes at the time.

The later part of the 18th century marked a period of great revolt. In 1776, the American Revolution changed the world. A few years later, the French had their own revolution (1789) and the first modern democracies were born.

Reflecting this new way of thinking, audiences wanted to see characters like themselves on stage. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786) did just that. It told a story about aristocratic class struggle that had both servants and nobility in leading roles. With the characters of Figaro and Susanna, Mozart gave opera relatable human beings. Mozart’s operas embody the tenets of the Enlightenment such as equality, freedom, and the importance of the lower classes.

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In the 1800s, Italian opera developed further with the bel canto movement, which means “beautiful singing.” Opera continued to be about real stories and achieving honesty in expression. The most famous bel canto composers were Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848), and Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835). The success of these composers can be measured in their ability to withstand the test of time. Rossini’s popular comedies, The Barber of Seville (1816) and Cinderella (1817), are still some of the most popular operas performed today.

By the middle of the 19th century, the Romantic Movement led many composers to champion their own national identities. Composers and librettists created operas for the audiences they knew best. Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi continued to develop the bel canto style of his predecessors and became a national hero by using nationalism in his operas like Nabucco (1842) to promote the cause of Italian unification.

German operas like Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821), Russian operas like Mikhail Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (1836), and French operas like Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (1836) were performed frequently in their native countries.

In Germany, Richard Wagner brought the Romantic period to its peak by exploiting the grand potential of opera. How could all of the elements — orchestra, set, chorus, soloists, and more — be elevated to transform a story and deeply affect an audience? In The Ring of the Nibelung (1876), a series of four operas taking more than 15 hours to perform, Wagner created one of opera’s greatest masterpieces.

A comic moment from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

Opera in the 20th century emerged as a period of great experimentation. Composers like Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, 1896), Richard Strauss (Salome, 1905) and Benjamin Britten (Peter Grimes, 1945) continued to evolve their national styles. Others, horrified by the destruction of World War I (1914–1918) and other aspects of modern life, created music that was new and drastically inharmonious. Meanwhile, American opera had a huge hit with George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), which included the musical styles of jazz and blues.

Today, opera continues to grow and expand. Opera Philadelphia helps to shape the future of opera by producing important new works like Daniel Bernard Roumain and Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s 2017 opera, We Shall Not Be Moved, a story about Philadelphia youth and many of the issues facing society today. In October 2017, the opera went on to be performed at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.

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Vanessa Vasquez and Evan LeRoy Johnson in Puccini’s La bohème.

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R E I M AG I NE T H E O PE RA CAN ON

M a k a di n i ! H el l o !

I’m Tanyaradzwa Mambano Tawengwa and I am a Zimbabwean composer, singer, and scholar. I would like you to play a quick game with me. Please close your eyes and take three deep breaths. As you breathe, I want you to answer these two questions: Where do you feel at home? And where do you feel like an outsider?

These two questions are central to our task of reimagining the opera canon.

The opera canon is a collection of works that are deemed to define the best of the opera genre throughout Western music history. The issue with the canon as we know it today is that it makes only a few feel at home, and many feel like outsiders. Our job as a community is to create an inclusive opera canon that makes everyone feel at home. I am going to explain why this is important, by telling you my story.

Tanyaradzwa Mambano Tawengwa

I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. My musical journey began before I was born. My great-grandfather, Reverend John Mafa Melusi, was an evangelist for Methodist missionaries who arrived in Southern Africa in the late-1800s.

My great-grandmother, Lynah Melusi was a polyglot — she spoke eleven languages. She would translate all of my great-grandfather’s sermons from English to whatever language the population he was preaching to spoke.

Their eight children – one of whom was my grandmother Soneni Melusi – were the choir. The siblings would learn the English Methodist hymns, translate them into the many languages spoken – ­ ChiVanhu, isiNdebele, isiZulu, ChiVenda, ChiKaranga, etc. — and arrange them into Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB) four-part harmony to sing during his sermons. It truly was a family affair!

My grandmother Soneni, grew up to become a member and My great-grandmother Lynah Melusi, the polyglot conductor of the Highfield (pictured far left) Methodist Church Choir. There, my mother caught the singing bug and later joined the Greendale Methodist Church Choir. By the time I came along and started singing, no one was surprised. Singing was in my blood and I felt right at home in the music.

My grandmother, Soneni Melusi-Mbofana (first standing row, far right) and the Highfield Methodist Church Choir in the 1970s SOUNDS OF LEARNING

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While singing in the choir with my mother, I began to learn Western music theory, piano, and cello at school. I attended the Dominican Convent Girls School — a missionary school established by Catholic nuns in the late nineteenth-century. My music teacher, Sister Loyola, was a formidable, 86year old German immigrant to Zimbabwe, who played piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, and classical guitar; and also composed. She was an excellent, affirming teacher who made me feel right at home in the world of Western classical music.

My great-grandparents, grandmother, mother, and Sr. Loyola prepared me well for my career in opera. I left Zimbabwe at the age of sixteen to study here in the United States of America. When I arrived as a first-year student at Princeton University, I was ready to make my community proud as the first Zimbabwean in the university’s history to graduate with a degree in music composition and vocal performance.

As a composition major, I was interested in writing music that told my ancestors’ and my stories. As I composed and sang, I was eager to find composers and singers who look like me, and whose stories felt close and familiar to mine.

Posing with my father Matemai Charles Tawengwa, my two sisters Yemurai and Salome, and my nephew at my Princeton University graduation in 2014. I am the first Zimbabwean in the university’s history to receive a degree in Music.

As I did my research, it quickly became clear to me that Black composers were not represented in my textbooks, in my courses, in the productions we mounted as a music department, or in the trips we took to leading opera houses in New York City. I also noticed that I was often one of few, if not the only Black woman in these opera spaces. I had one experience where an usher refused to let me in through the performers’ entrance because they assumed I was a lost audience member, and not a performer. That experience was painful because the usher made me feel like an outsider.

Seeing how Black creators have been systemically erased from the opera canon brought on many difficult emotions. When I was growing up, my father used to tell me, “The tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter until the lioness learns to write.” My father’s wisdom and my personal experiences catalyzed what would become my call to scholarship — restorative justice in the operatic canon. I chose to be part of the community of scholars working to ensure that Black creators of the operatic canon are written into history, seen, heard, and known.

Me pictured with my mother, Gertrude TawengwaMbofana (left) and my sister, Salome Mbofana-Kachidza (right) after giving a recital of my song cycle The Dawn of the Rooster as part the Brooklyn Public Library’s Classical Interludes in 2019.

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Discovering the Black creators of the opera canon was amazing! I read about Newton Gardner (1746–1826) who opened one of the first Blackowned singing schools in the United States in 1791; of Theodore Drury, a tenor and impresario who founded the Drury Colored Opera Company in New York City in 1881; and of Desseria Plato, a celebrated mezzo-soprano in the 1890s. I listened to Harry Lawrence Freeman and Scott Joplin’s operas: Voodoo and Treemonisha; I looked for the score to Shirley Graham du Bois’ opera Toms Toms, and I listened to recordings of her inspiring speeches every morning on repeat.

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What I hope to convey by sharing my story is that reimagining the opera canon is more than a mere intellectual exercise. It is a healing act of humanity.

Learning the names and works of Black women composers like Shirley Graham du Bois, helped me to see myself as part of a breathtakingly beautiful lineage of Black women composers and singers in the operatic art form. The act of reimagining the operatic canon took me from being made to feel like an outsider, to being welcomed and feeling at home. I also like to imagine how our acts of restorative justice make the composers feel. The obstacles of racial segregation must have weighed heavily on them in their lifetimes, and it must be incredibly uplifting to their spirits, to hear their music finally being acknowledged today.

Me singing as a Revolutionary Woman in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles presented at the Glimmerglass Festival and at the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2019.

As we reimagine the opera canon in 2021, let us celebrate the creation of a welcoming space that transforms members of our opera community from feeling like outsiders to being part of the family, and feeling right at home.

To each one of you reading this, I offer these heartfelt words in closing: Please make yourself at home.

Tanyaradzwa and the Princeton Glee Club in South Africa

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S O YO U WA N T TO S I N G LIKE AN OPERA SINGER?

Singing on the opera stage is very hard work! Singers are like athletes, constantly training to perfect their voices. They ask their voices and bodies to do what most of us without training can’t do: sing incredibly intricate and difficult music and project their voices to be heard over a 60-piece orchestra without microphones or amplification.

Singing begins with the human voice, a very versatile instrument. It can produce sounds that present a wide range of frequencies that we call pitches.

Our voices are able to change in volume as a result of the air we exhale from our lungs and control with our diaphragm, a muscle right behind our stomach that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. When we inhale deeply, the diaphragm lowers and the ribs and stomach expand as the lungs fill with air. Then the diaphragm guides the air out when it contracts, causing our vocal folds to vibrate. Vocal folds are fibrous bands that are stretched along the two sides of our larynx, or our sound instrument, just below the ‘Adam’s apple.’ When we hum, talk, or sing, air passes through the larynx causing the vocal folds to vibrate, creating a sound that is then shaped by the other parts of our bodies including the mouth, tongue, teeth, and lips. To sing different pitches and volumes, singers must control the flow of air, through the vocal folds in our larynx.

They practice vocal exercises daily so that they can quickly adjust to the demands of the music without thinking about it.

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O P E R AT I C V O I C E T Y P E S Have you ever noticed how no two voices sound the same? While we might take it for granted, our voices are as diverse and unique as we are. Whether communicating through speech, or expressing beauty and emotion through song, each voice has a unique blueprint that helps to convey who we are as well as to imagine who we could be.

Our voices are produced when two tiny vocal folds vibrate together with the air from our lungs. While most people possess these parts, each person’s vocal folds might be a bit longer, shorter, thicker, or thinner, helping to determine how high or low they sing or speak. Even the size and shape of our nasal passages, mouth, and throat help to create unique colors or timbres in each voice.

In opera, voices are grouped into seven main categories (from highest to lowest): soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. Although many operas traditionally have been written with female characters sung by higher voices and male characters sung by lower voices, people of all gender identities sing with voices that are all over the vocal spectrum.

There are men who sing very high, women who sing very low, and nonbinary and genderfluid people who sing in different ranges as well. The following people are just some examples of the diverse human voices who have found a home on the opera stages of the world.

SOPRANO Soprano is the highest voice type, with a traditional range of A below middle C to the C two octaves above that. The soprano is often at the center of the romantic storyline, and is typically the protagonist. Soprano roles in opera can include heroines, maids, teenage boys, queens, and even young heroes.

Eri Nakamura

Leah Crocetto

M E Z ZO - S O P R A N O Mezzo-soprano is the next highest voice type and is only a bit lower than soprano, with a typical range of G below middle C to the Bb two octaves above. Mezzo soprano roles include heroic knights, warriors, villains, witches, mothers, and even young heroines. While the mezzo-soprano is often a more supporting role, this isn’t always the case!

Daniela Mack

Marietta Simpson

C O N T R A LTO

Marian Anderson

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Meredith Arwady

Contralto is lower than both soprano and mezzo soprano, with a range of F below middle C to the second G above. While contraltos are considered to be rare voice types, many roles written for this voice are often sung by mezzo-sopranos and countertenors. Some roles for contraltos are goddesses, knights and heroic warriors, witches, and even wise old grandmothers.

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COUNTERTENOR

John Holiday

Anthony Roth Costanzo

The name countertenor is often given to men or folks who do not identify as female, who sing in a similar range to a contralto or mezzo-soprano.

Countertenors often use their head voice or falsetto to extend their range upward. Before the middle part of the 20th century, countertenors were less popular in opera, however today they are quite popular in both contemporary opera and opera from the Baroque period (1600-1750), and can sing a variety of roles from heroes to villains, as well as gods, goddesses, and fantastical creatures such as fairies, ghosts, or angels.

TENOR Tenor is slightly lower than countertenor, with a typical range of D below middle C to the C an octave above middle C. Before the Classical period (1775-1825), tenors often appeared in supporting and comedic roles, however since then, they are more often seen as the main heroes or part of the romantic storyline.

Lawrence Brownlee

Evan Leroy Johnson

B A R I TO N E Baritone is considered a middle to low voice type, and sits between tenor and bass, with a range of A an octave below middle C to the G above middle C. Baritones are often comedic characters, but can also appear as the villain or antagonist of the story.

Troy Cook

Will Liverman

B ASS Bass is the lowest and darkest voice part, with a range of E two octaves below middle C to the F above middle C. Basses are sometimes also comedic characters, as well as fatherly figures, wise sages, or noble, royal characters.

Zachary James

Morris Robinson

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VOICE RANGE & GENDER IDENTITY Jessye DeSilva, D.M.A.

Growing up I was taught that there were two genders, and that the two genders would eventually determine whether someone’s voice would be high or low after puberty. As humans, we like when we can put things into boxes; how we think of people’s voices is no exception to this. Sorting things into categories helps us to navigate a world which is often much more complex than male/female, black/white, good/bad, and so forth. However, just like most people turn out to be much more complex than “good or bad,” the ways in which they live and experience their gender identities goes far beyond “male and female.” So why do we still hear so many people talk about voices as if they can be defined by two gender identities?

Our voices are as unique as our fingerprints. They are not just a product of our physical bodies, they are also influenced by our experiences and emotions, as well as the time periods and geographic locations in which we have grown up.

In singing, the main characteristics we use to talk about voices are “pitch range” and “timbre” or color. “Pitch range” refers to how high or low a person is able to speak or sing.

“Timbre” is the vocal color or quality. Some voices sound bright and pointed, while others sound dark and warm. While these things can be enhanced or even altered by practice, technique, musical style, and emotion, they are most affected by physical characteristics such as the length and thickness of the vocal folds as well as the size and shape of the vocal tract (which includes the larynx, the trachea, the nasal cavity, and the mouth). These physical characteristics are distinct between people post-puberty, based on the presence of certain hormones such as estrogen or testosterone.

Estrogen – A type of hormone responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics, including breast development, increased pubic hair growth, and changes in fat distribution.

Testosterone – A hormone responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics, typically including the growth of body and/or facial hair, increased muscularity, fat redistribution, and thickening of the vocal chords.1 Now, gender identity is a bit more complicated than what I learned growing up. I was taught that a person was either male or female, based on what genitalia they possessed, and what hormones their bodies produced during puberty. These are the things that society and even many doctors use when we are born to put us into one of two boxes. However, gender isn’t defined by our bodies or by society, or even by a medical doctor. Gender is personal, and it is defined by how we see and experience ourselves in the world. Some people, irrespective of the hormones their bodies produce, may seek out Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy or GAHT (sometimes referred to as Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT). For some, this GAHT will involve the introduction of testosterone into their bodies. For others, it will involve the introduction of estrogen. However, it is important to note that there are Trans and Nonbinary people who do not seek GAHT or other medical procedures to affirm their gender.

1 Definitions from translifeline.org/resource/glossary-of-terms-definitions/

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H I G H E R P I TC H R A N G E (thinner, shorter vocal folds)

BRIGHTER TIMBRE (smaller vocal tract)

Cis Woman Trans Man* Nonbinary Person*

Cis Man Trans Woman§ Nonbinary Person§

Cis Woman Trans Man† Nonbinary Person†

Cis Man Trans Woman § Nonbinary Person§

DA R K E R TIMBRE (larger vocal tract)

LO W E R P I TC H R A N G E (thicker, longer vocal folds) * with or without Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy (testosterone) † w ith Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy (testosterone) § w ith or without Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy (estrogen)

So what do all of these things - gender, puberty, and Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy - have to do with the human voice? Well, the introduction of testosterone or estrogen into our bodies, as well as when this takes place (either during puberty or after) has a direct effect on the size and shape of our vocal folds and our vocal tracts. Thicker and longer vocal folds create lower pitches. Larger vocal tracts create darker, fuller resonance and timbre. So, if someone goes through testosterone-dominant puberty, their vocal folds and their vocal tract will enlarge, likely producing a lower, fuller-sounding voice. This change is permanent, regardless of whether estrogen is introduced after puberty through GAHT. Another person who went through estrogen-dominant puberty may later choose to undergo testosterone-dominant GAHT. This will cause their vocal folds to thicken, which will give them access to lower pitches, however the rest of their vocal tract will not enlarge, and so they may not experience the same darkening and fullness of timbre. While estrogen-dominant puberty may cause some changes to the voice, they are not as drastic in terms of range and timbre as those caused by testosterone-dominant puberty.

It’s important to note that most of what we’re talking about here is still through a pretty dualistic lens of gender (what many call the gender binary). It’s also important to note that even among cisgender people (people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth), every voice, every body, and every experience is different. There are cis men who sing very high and might label themselves musically as countertenors. There are also cis women who sing low and might label themselves contraltos or even tenors. Vocal training might allow a trans woman who has a larger vocal tract and thicker vocal folds to expand her range upward and brighten her timbre. Trans men might not seek out GAHT and sing quite high. And nonbinary people might wish to explore all of the possibilities of their voices free from the confines of the gender binary.

We cannot and should not assume someone’s gender identity based on the sound of their voice or what voice part they sing.

What I hope is most clear from this article and its accompanying chart is that the richness and diversity of the human gender experience can only expand the color palette of the human voice.

Let’s all of us, whether we are cis, trans, or nonbinary break out of the boxes of gender and see what unique things our voices are capable of!

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P H I L A D E L P H I A’S AC A D E M Y O F M U S I C A P L AC E F O R YO U Opera Philadelphia’s home, the Academy of Music, opened in 1857. Opera is only one type of performance that takes place in the Academy.

There are also ballets, concerts, and galas.

The building is a historical monument and the oldest grand opera house in America still used for its original purpose. The Academy of Music is sometimes called the “The Grand Old Lady of Locust Street.”

The opera house was initially built with a plain white exterior because the architects wanted the beauty to be on the interior, as it was at the famous opera house, La Scala, in Italy. Later, the exterior was revised to look as it does today. Unlike other performance houses, the Academy of Music’s seating has a ‘U’ shape. This was for the audience to have the best view from every angle possible. The first opera presented in the brand new opera house was Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore on February 25, 1857.

The basement of the Academy of Music has a history, too. It was used as a dining hall because of its beautiful interior decoration. During World War II the hall was transformed into the Stage Door Canteen, serving refreshments and featuring appearances by entertainers performing at the Academy of Music, such as Abbott and Costello, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra.

Today, the Academy of Music continues to entertain people through concerts, operas, ballets, and more. The wondrous hall dedicated to the arts has blossomed into the perfect place for a performance of any kind.

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Academy of Music Facts •The auditorium seats 2,509.

•14 columns support each of the Academy’s tiers.

• The red and gold pattern on the Academy’s stage curtain simulates a pineapple, a Victorian-era symbol for “welcome.”

• The first-ever indoor football game was held on the Academy’s Parquet level on March 7, 1889, between the University of Pennsylvania and Riverton Club of Princeton.

• 1,600 people attended the first-ever public motion picture screening on February 5, 1870.

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T H E L A N G U AG E O F O P E R A

Expand your vocabulary with words about the different components of opera. You never know when these new terms might appear in a performance you are watching.

ACT main sections of a play or opera

ARIA a solo song sung in an opera

BALLET dance set to music

BLOCKING action on stage

CHORUS music composed for a group of singers; the name of a group of singers in an opera

COMMISSION the act of requesting the creation of a piece of art, often on behalf of another

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CONDUCTOR person who rehearses and leads the orchestra

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DRAMATURG a specialist in drama, especially one who acts as a consultant to a theater company, advising them on possible repertory

DUET a song performed by two singers

LIBRETTO the text or words in an opera; an opera’s script

OVERTURE a piece of instrumental music played at the beginning that sets the mood for the opera

SCENE a sequence of continuous actions

ORCHESTRA a group of musicians who play together on various musical instruments

RECITATIVE words that are sung in the rhythm of natural speech

SCORE the written music of an opera or other musical work Listen to this article

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OPERAPHIL A.ORG