Boston Lyric Opera

On a larger and sort of deeper scale, the reevaluation around Butterfly is centered on it as an Orientalist work.

Orientalism is a big academic topic, which University of Hawaii professor Mari Yoshihara, in a panel discussion for Boston Lyric Opera's The Butterfly Process series, summarized this way.

Quote, Orientalism is a concept that was most powerfully theorized by cultural literary critic Edward Said in his book called Orientalism, originally published in 1978.

And to put it very simply, Orientalism is a Western discourse, so to put that even more plainly, the Western ways of understanding and representing the so-called Orient that's premised on two most basic assumptions.

Impacts.

For a member of the majority culture, it can be tempting, even from a casual good faith perspective, to say, why does any of this matter? It's from 120 years ago.

So what? This is a big question I should probably stay out of, but I think at least a partial answer is in the self-perpetuating inertia of these tropes, as laid out by Mari Yoshihara in that Boston Lyric Opera discussion series.

Quote, Orientalism keeps producing and reproducing these tropes, right? Tropes or vocabularies or narratives about the Orient that then inform each other.

"Chaslan's brief and incidental interactions with Mr. Epstein were limited to a small number of social encounters, all of which took place in the presence of third parties and were entirely devoid of any improper conduct."

conduct."Boston Lyric Opera and Massari Studios have teamed up to reimagine operatic supertitles by integrating animated typography into scenic design.

Tested in a March production of the Mahler symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde, the approach used projected text styled and paced to reflect the emotion of the singing, making translations part of the visual experience rather than a separate utility.

Apple Music Classical has announced a partnership with Kahoot!, an educational software company, to bring music education to the classroom.

This is a very recent opera that deals with a real historical figure, his capture in West Africa, traveling across the Atlantic, and life in slavery in South Carolina.

Omar premiered in Spoleto in 2022 and has since been performed at major companies, LA Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and San Francisco Opera.

And the reviews have been pretty ecstatic.

So I, for one, am excited to check it out in person.