I’ve spent thousands of hours of my life in an opera house and love every second: the huge voices, lavish productions, and outlandish plots. I’ve been hooked ever since college. Yes, there were sometimes stares, sometimes weird comments — “Did you know this was in German?” But having grown up Black and gay in the South, I’m not about to let someone else’s ignorance interfere with something I love.
I have a particular fondness for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. the Met is a staggering temple of old white privilege with curving double staircases and crystal chandeliers that ascend to the ceiling. Yet as much as I love the Met, I’ve never seen myself reflected or represented there. Black artists such as Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman have triumphed at the Met, and there are a few popular operas featuring people of color, but most opera singers are non-POC and the most popular operas are written by white men. The few operas written by POC are performed in small, regional houses — never at the Met.
