Tonight at the Opera
One of Louisiana's most traditional art forms lives on in the modern age
If you walk down Bourbon Street between St. Louis and Toulouse, you might notice that the infamous street inexplicably widens halfway hdown the block; it’s as if there’s an extra lane. It’s not there to service the hotel that now sits at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse; it’s the last vestige of an era during which ladies and gentlemen of New Orleans high society would have been dropped off in their horse-drawn carriages: the added lane made it easier. It’s a curbside reminder of a gem of bygone New Orleans cultural life: The Old French Opera House.
In a fateful night for the city, December 4, 1919, that building—which had housed local opera performances since 1859—burned to ash. It hadn’t been New Orleans’s first opera house, but had been the longest-lived. The Old French Opera House had become vital to both ordinary and “sophisticated” cultural life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Richard Campanella, in addition to opera, the space hosted vaudeville shows, carnival balls, and other entertainments for all classes, and races, of New Orleanians. The fire was a blow so robust, Campanella believes it actually hastened “the decline of French Creole Culture” in the Quarter.
Over one hundred years before that great fire, in 1792, Le Théâtre St. Pierre opened on St. Peter Street. According to New Orleans Opera Archivist Jack Belsom, the space hosted “plays, comedy, and vaudeville,” but soon would make history when, on May 22, 1796, the first known opera production on a New Orleans stage brought André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain to the city. This marked the beginning of what many now believe to have been the first known opera company in the United States.
This historic performance marked the embryonic stages of a musical tradition that still exists in Louisiana today. Over the years the genre has waxed, waned, evolved, and somehow—despite unprecedented shifts in where humans find their entertainment—survived.
Which brings us back to that tragic fire of 1919. Following its devastation, the cultural arts scene in the crown jewel of Louisiana cities struggled for some time to regain its foothold. The New Orleans Opera Association, however, resurrected that zeitgeist in part when it became active in the 1940s. Having just celebrated its eighty-first season in 2023, it continues to present traditional operas, while continuously evolving to also reflect a more contemporary mindset.
Dr. Tara A. Melvin, New Orleans Opera’s Director of Community Partnerships and Education, understands well the balance between tradition and progress. “We tend to see art as static,” Dr. Melvin explained. “We view art through the lens of preservation, which is okay in ways, but doesn’t allow art to be what it is."
“Art shows us the ways artists see the world, and how they work through their issues. Opera is no different,” she continued. As an example, she referenced New Orleans Opera’s first major performance of the 2023-2024 season, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro).
“[Mozart] infused struggle, and his feelings about class, into the opera,” Dr. Melvin said. “He was shining a light, holding up a mirror, and pointing toward the future. He did all of that in the span of three hours, and even though the opera is named after a man, the central character is a woman.” The story’s relevance has endured, she said. “There’s evidence of class struggle all around us. We don’t usually formalize it the way he did.”
“Art shows us the ways artists see the world, and how they work through their issues. Opera is no different,” —Dr. Tara A. Melvin
Steve Aiken, who is the general and artistic director of the Shreveport Opera, which celebrated its 75th season this year, also understands well how the traditions of opera ought to be maintained, while also inviting modern audiences to enjoy them through a new lens.
He explained that the company really “got its footing” back in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Metropolitan Opera would tour the country, and “people got to see some of the superstars of the opera world.” Shreveport audiences liked what they heard. “Those tours for the most part don’t exist anymore, but it was a driving force in many cities starting their own companies.”
As it has since the company was founded, today the Shreveport Opera still collaborates with the Shreveport symphony for all of its major shows, but is also offering scaled-down performances under the title of “Art After Dark”. These one-hour shows, presented in smaller, lower-cost venues, showcase operas written in the past ten years and offer what Aiken calls an “edgier” message. These productions are designed as entry points to bring new listeners into the fold.
“I think it’s the obligation of companies like ours to slowly edge into shorter productions,” Aiken said. “The opera world is changing.”
Aiken said a pride of the Shreveport Opera is its artist–in-residence program, wherein four vocalists are selected each year. “I think we’re the only company in Louisiana that has a residency for the entire year,” Aiken said, adding that these performers, part of the “corp,” will do 125 performances a year, including singing leads in the shows of that season and conducting extensive school outreach.
Like the Shreveport Opera, Baton Rouge’s Opéra Louisiane has started presenting shorter performances targeting a wider demographic, presented in “non-traditional” spaces like the Old State Capitol. “At Opéra Louisiane, it is our mission to present opera that—like the voices—will tell stories that resonate with everyone,” said the company’s General Director and CEO Kathryn Frady.
“Opera is about the tradition of singing with a technique that allows singers to project their voices over the orchestra to the back of the hall without any additional amplification,” she said. “So when audiences, supporters, and producers keep that fact in mind, it becomes easy to blend the ideas of traditional opera and modern opera, or opera for a modern audience, into a season.”
[Read more about Opéra Louisiane's production of The Christmas Spider at the Manship Theatre.]
A more recent development in Louisiana’s opera scene is the New Orleans company OperaCréole. Founded in 2011 by Givonna Joseph and Aria Mason, this company is dedicated to performing “lost or rarely performed works” by composers of African descent.
“We have to remember that no matter our color, opera is in the DNA of New Orleans,” Joseph said, adding that OperaCréole is interested in a “restorative justice element, primarily for the 19th century free composers of color.” She said another primary goal is to use appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to “introduce what we do, but through a different lens, for someone who usually wouldn’t come to opera.”
“We have to remember that no matter our color, opera is in the DNA of New Orleans,” —Givonna Joseph
In October, OperaCréole teamed up with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to create a musical experience that’s sure draw the attention of new audiences. They performed live the score to the film Get Out, Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed psychological thriller. The show was a unique multi-disciplinary event wherein operatic voices combined with music and film to create something altogether new; it, along with the similar recent production of Jurassic Park In Concert, just might serve to elicit fresh interest in classical and operatic genres.
Joseph also does a lot of outreach in classrooms, hoping to introduce opera to youth. “They love it,” she said. An example she gave was when she introduced 4th graders to the Bizet opera, Carmen. She’d play them the original version; then the Dorothy Dandridge version from the 1950s; followed by a modern interpretation by contemporary superstar, Beyoncé Knowles. Surprisingly, Joseph discovered they usually preferred the original. “I didn’t think they would like this … it turned out they ended up loving it!”
Outreach targeted to new generations is also a major tenet of Dr. Melvin’s work at the New Orleans Opera. It’s important to her to stress how many moving parts go into a production, and that there’s a place for people with passion.
“Opera uses so many artforms to tell a story, I think it’s important for students to see that,” she said. “Some may identify with singers or instrumentalists playing in the orchestra, but there are four hundred other jobs that have to be done before the opera hits the stage.” To give young people the chance to explore these opportunities, the New Orleans Opera hosts a regular, free, program called “Career Day: Jobs off the Stage,” during which kids can talk to scenic designers, scenic painters, wardrobe people, sound engineers, and more.
“The students learn that no job is more important than another, and they are essential to any theatrical production,” Dr. Melvin explained. “They also get to speak with creatives and ask any questions they may have. There is so much more to opera than singing on a stage.”
In Baton Rouge, Opéra Louisiane is also working to push the music forward for the next generation. In addition to its main productions, the company creates free child-centric productions in schools. Tens of thousands of area 4th, 5th and 6th grade students in the Capital City have been able to see a fully-staged opera through the “Young People’s Opera Program.” It’s one of this company's many efforts to create a bridge to new audiences.
In these ways and others, just as the floundering Crescent City opera scene was literally revived from ashes following the infamous 1919 fire, the contemporary opera milieu in Louisiana is continually being remade, either by building bridges to traditions of the past or by creating all new ways of enjoying la belle musique.
Upcoming Opera Performances in Louisiana
Opéra Louisiane
The Christmas Spider (World Premiere): December 15 & 17, 2023
The Barber of Seville: May 3 & 5, 2024
New Orleans Opera Association
Lucia Di Lammermoor: March 22 & 24, 2024
OpéraCreole
Chevalier and Charlotte: A Masked Ball : January 12, 2024
Shreveport Opera
La Petite Boheme (Art After Dark) : February 23, 2024
Così fan tutte: April 20, 2024