A Brief History of Opera

American Opera

Time period: early 1900s to present day
Major Composers: George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Carlisle Floyd

Background:
Opera has been performed in America since the 1700s, and opera houses have existed in cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, and New Orleans since the 1800s. In the early 1900s, as Broadway evolved, opera composers began to incorporate elements of musical theater, into their works, blurring the lines between opera and Broadway.

George Gershwin, born in 1898, began his musical career as a songwriter working with his lyricist brother, Ira, creating such songs as "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Our Love Is Here To Stay." The Gershwins found their musical home on Broadway, but perhaps their best-known work -- Porgy and Bess -- continues to be the most-performed American work on opera stages. Porgy and Bess contains both jazz and Southern African-American musical traditions, as well as folk traditions. It includes musical works such as jubilees, blues, prayer songs, work songs, and spirituals that are incorporated alongside traditional operatic arias and recitatives.

Scott Joplin, a well-known composer of ragtime and jazz music, also wrote opera. His main composition, Treemonisha, has many traditional opera elements (an overture, recitative, arias, and duets) but also incorporates ragtime and jazz influences popular during that time.

Gian Carlo Menotti, one of the more prolific opera composers of the 20th century, sought to bring opera to different mediums. His opera, The Old Maid and the Thief, was the first work written especially for radio, and his Christmas classic, Ahmal and the Night Visitors, was composed for NBC-TV, where it premiered in 1951. Several of his operas, including The Telephone, The Medium, and The Consul, have been performed on Broadway. In addition, Menotti created the Spoleto Festival, which takes place annually in Italy and in Charleston, South Carolina.

Kurt Weill, one of the 20th century's most versatile composers, created unique works with jazz influences, many of which also included dance elements. He experienced great success as an opera composer both in Europe and on Broadway, while still maintaining his own original style through his compositions. He is best known for his collaboration with Bertold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, a series of cabaret-style musical numbers with spoken dialogue, and for Street Scene, an adaptation of Elmer Rice's novel about life in New York City that played on Broadway for 148 performances.

The 1950s saw important premieres on the opera stage, including The Tender Land by Aaron Copland, the composer of "Fanfare for the Common Man," and Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, which premiered at Florida State University. Composers during this period sought to portray truly American subjects. Aaron Copland's The Tender Land centers around a Midwestern farming family during the Depression and follows high school senior Laurie as she makes decisions about how to live her life coming of age in changing times. Carlisle Floyd depicts life in rural and small-town America through such operas as Susannah, Cold Sassy Tree, and Of Mice and Men.

In the 1960s and '70s, opera's popularity in the United States grew. As a result, opera companies were established in cities of all sizes, and fans no longer needed to travel to a major metropolis to see a performance. With the increased number of opera houses and with growing audiences, companies began commissioning new works, a trend that continues to this day.

New operas depict a variety of subjects, many of which originate in literature. Little Women, composed Mark Adamo, is based on the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott; The Great Gatsby by John Harbison is based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel; Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie and Terrance McNally is based on the writings of Sister Helen Prejean; and Margaret Garner, by Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison, dramatizes the life of a historic person whose story also serves as the basis of Morrison's book Beloved.

Denyce Graves and Rodney Gilfrey in Michigan Opera Theatre's 2005 world premiere production of Richard Danielpour's Margaret Garner. Photo courtesy of Michigan Opera Theatre.		New York City Opera's production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, featuring John Packard as Joseph De Rocher and Joyce DiDonato as Sr. Helen Prejean. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

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