A. Kori Hill Over a hundred years ago, there lived a guy named Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). He was frustrated because Classical music had gotten so big, long, complex, and chromatic […]
First was a dude named Josef Matthias Hauer.
The operas discussed here are not set in 18th century France or a mythological country. One is set in 21st century Cincinnati, Ohio; the other in 19th century South Carolina. Both deal with topics you may not expect from an opera: four high schoolers prepping for college admission essays; an enslaved Muslim man finding his way in pre-Civil War America. But what they tell us is that opera is only limited by what we decide it can express.
Giddens (who also did the libretto) and Michael Abels, Omar is based on a real dude
