This fall, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto gave a botched face-lift to “Turandot," a Puccini opera about a barbaric Chinese princess in “ancient Peking” who executes her suitors.
To try to mask the racism of the opera, the director changed the names of Ping, Pang and Pong, three of the main characters, to Jim, Bob and Bill, and swapped their Chinese costumes for black suits. My father, a Taiwanese-American tenor, performed the role of Pong (or I guess, Bill?) for the production’s 2019 run. But the characters continued to play into stereotypes of effeminate Asian men as they pranced around onstage, giggling at one another.
Alterations like these have become part of a broader trend as opera clumsily reckons with its racist and sexist past. But if it hopes to win favor with younger listeners like me, opera needs to realize that shallow changes can’t erase the problematic foundations of season fixtures like “Turandot,” “Madama Butterfly,” “The Magic Flute” and “Carmen.”
The Orientalist stereotyping in “Turandot,” for instance, seeps into the music itself. The only way to get rid of it would be to rewrite the opera entirely, a revision that would destroy the classical canon. So how do we bring opera into the 21st century? How do we preserve the beauty of Puccini’s music, the likes of which will never be composed again, while also recognizing that it taints how we perceive Chinese women like me?
To survive, opera has to confront the depth of its racism and sexism point-blank, treating classic operas as historical artifacts instead of dynamic cultural productions. Opera directors should approach the production of these classics as museum curators and professors — educating audiences about historical context and making stereotypes visible.
A helpful model for this is Seattle Opera’s 2017 production of “Madama Butterfly,” another Puccini work, about a 15-year-old Japanese geisha named Cio-Cio San who is impregnated by an American naval officer. He later deserts her for a “proper” white wife named Kate; the opera ends with Cio-Cio San committing seppuku. Seattle Opera didn’t shy away from the ugly parts of this work. Instead, it addressed them in a large-scale exhibition in the lobby with posters detailing Mickey Rooney’s racist portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the problematic nature of Broadway’s “Miss Saigon." The opera company hosted a public discussion among Asian artists, activists and community leaders, as well as an evening of plays written by Asian-American women.
In doing so, Seattle Opera made the racism and sexism that permeates “Madama Butterfly” unavoidable. This is significant, because opera audiences tend to be made up of majority-white audiences who may be less aware of the offensive caricatures they’re seeing onstage. The lobby exhibition presented “Madama Butterfly” as the historical artifact that it is, allowing the opera’s racism and sexism to serve in a productive educational project.
Just as “Burmese Days,” the classic George Orwell tale that features racist caricatures of Indians under colonial rule, can be responsibly taught in history classrooms, so too can “Madama Butterfly” help us more clearly understand the Orientalism that persists in the 21st century.
I’ve been watching operas since I was a child. Our family vacations happened wherever my father was performing that year; the closest thing I got to representation was white women in yellowface. As I grow older, however, operas that I adored as a child have become harder to stomach. I’m the product of a socially aware generation. Courses in Asian-American history taught me about the Page Act of 1875, which banned immigration by Asian prostitutes, effectively barring Chinese women from the country. The stereotyping of Asian women as submissive and exotic sex objects persists in American cultural works. Operas, while fantastical and fictional, still affect the way we perceive the people portrayed in them.
Some critics argue for retiring problematic operas from the stage. While newer operas written by people of color tell their stories responsibly, they aren’t going to replace the classics anytime soon. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive to diversify operas, both in composition and in casting. In fact, that’s ideal. But in the meantime, doing away with these works would destroy the art form, preventing us from reshaping otherwise beautiful compositions in powerful ways. Opera companies have a responsibility to present classics in a way that helps audiences understand how problematic histories continue to reverberate today.
There are lines in the sand that we should draw, such as eliminating blackface, brownface and yellowface. However, small cosmetic changes are not the way to bring opera into the 21st century; they’re mere distractions. We need to view the opera house as both a museum and a classroom, even if it invites discomfort. That is the path to securing opera’s future.
The music in “Turandot’’ is entrancing; there is no feeling comparable to the force of an operatic finale. My hope is that more people will feel comfortable in the opera houses of my childhood. If we can hold Puccini’s musical genius in tandem with the racism of his time, there may be hope.
Katherine Hu, a junior at Yale College, was the opinion editor of The Yale Daily News.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Classical Opera Has a Racism Problem
Opinion | Classical Opera Has a Racism Problem
This fall, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto gave a botched face-lift to “Turandot," a Puccini opera about a barbaric Chinese princess in “ancient Peking” who executes her suitors.
To try to mask the racism of the opera, the director changed the names of Ping, Pang and Pong, three of the main characters, to Jim, Bob and Bill, and swapped their Chinese costumes for black suits. My father, a Taiwanese-American tenor, performed the role of Pong (or I guess, Bill?) for the production’s 2019 run. But the characters continued to play into stereotypes of effeminate Asian men as they pranced around onstage, giggling at one another.
Alterations like these have become part of a broader trend as opera clumsily reckons with its racist and sexist past. But if it hopes to win favor with younger listeners like me, opera needs to realize that shallow changes can’t erase the problematic foundations of season fixtures like “Turandot,” “Madama Butterfly,” “The Magic Flute” and “Carmen.”
The Orientalist stereotyping in “Turandot,” for instance, seeps into the music itself. The only way to get rid of it would be to rewrite the opera entirely, a revision that would destroy the classical canon. So how do we bring opera into the 21st century? How do we preserve the beauty of Puccini’s music, the likes of which will never be composed again, while also recognizing that it taints how we perceive Chinese women like me?
To survive, opera has to confront the depth of its racism and sexism point-blank, treating classic operas as historical artifacts instead of dynamic cultural productions. Opera directors should approach the production of these classics as museum curators and professors — educating audiences about historical context and making stereotypes visible.
A helpful model for this is Seattle Opera’s 2017 production of “Madama Butterfly,” another Puccini work, about a 15-year-old Japanese geisha named Cio-Cio San who is impregnated by an American naval officer. He later deserts her for a “proper” white wife named Kate; the opera ends with Cio-Cio San committing seppuku. Seattle Opera didn’t shy away from the ugly parts of this work. Instead, it addressed them in a large-scale exhibition in the lobby with posters detailing Mickey Rooney’s racist portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the problematic nature of Broadway’s “Miss Saigon." The opera company hosted a public discussion among Asian artists, activists and community leaders, as well as an evening of plays written by Asian-American women.
In doing so, Seattle Opera made the racism and sexism that permeates “Madama Butterfly” unavoidable. This is significant, because opera audiences tend to be made up of majority-white audiences who may be less aware of the offensive caricatures they’re seeing onstage. The lobby exhibition presented “Madama Butterfly” as the historical artifact that it is, allowing the opera’s racism and sexism to serve in a productive educational project.
Just as “Burmese Days,” the classic George Orwell tale that features racist caricatures of Indians under colonial rule, can be responsibly taught in history classrooms, so too can “Madama Butterfly” help us more clearly understand the Orientalism that persists in the 21st century.
I’ve been watching operas since I was a child. Our family vacations happened wherever my father was performing that year; the closest thing I got to representation was white women in yellowface. As I grow older, however, operas that I adored as a child have become harder to stomach. I’m the product of a socially aware generation. Courses in Asian-American history taught me about the Page Act of 1875, which banned immigration by Asian prostitutes, effectively barring Chinese women from the country. The stereotyping of Asian women as submissive and exotic sex objects persists in American cultural works. Operas, while fantastical and fictional, still affect the way we perceive the people portrayed in them.
Some critics argue for retiring problematic operas from the stage. While newer operas written by people of color tell their stories responsibly, they aren’t going to replace the classics anytime soon. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive to diversify operas, both in composition and in casting. In fact, that’s ideal. But in the meantime, doing away with these works would destroy the art form, preventing us from reshaping otherwise beautiful compositions in powerful ways. Opera companies have a responsibility to present classics in a way that helps audiences understand how problematic histories continue to reverberate today.
There are lines in the sand that we should draw, such as eliminating blackface, brownface and yellowface. However, small cosmetic changes are not the way to bring opera into the 21st century; they’re mere distractions. We need to view the opera house as both a museum and a classroom, even if it invites discomfort. That is the path to securing opera’s future.
The music in “Turandot’’ is entrancing; there is no feeling comparable to the force of an operatic finale. My hope is that more people will feel comfortable in the opera houses of my childhood. If we can hold Puccini’s musical genius in tandem with the racism of his time, there may be hope.
Katherine Hu, a junior at Yale College, was the opinion editor of The Yale Daily News.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article