[ This] deep dive into a counterculture of a century and more ago[ is] a revelation. * Harvard Magazine * Fascinatinga many-sided portrait ofa Black operatic counterculture. -- Ralph P. Locke * Arts Fuse * A scrupulously researched historythat has been all but ignored. -- Christopher Cook * BBC Music Magazine * Caplan highlights a treasure trove of vocalists and creators in this magisterial work that will prove immensely rewarding to serious opera scholars and those studying race relations and sociology in the 20th-century United States. -- Barry Zaslow * Library Journal * A significant contribution to the histories of American opera, the performing arts, and Black American culturewill enlighten and inform opera fans and readers interested in Black artists and culture. -- Carolyn Mulac * Booklist * An essential contribution to both operatic historiography and African-American cultural studies, with Caplans research illuminating the transformative impact of Black artists on operatic tradition, challenging entrenched racial barriers and enriching the art form with new dimensions of meaning. -- Will Yeoman * Limelight * An ambitious, demanding work on neglected Black artists. * Kirkus Reviews * I am banging my fists on the table, shouting at you to read Lucy Caplan's extraordinary book. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this book has achieved that rare feat of advancing our conversations on Blackness and classical music by decades. It is a work of field-defining scholarship. -- Kira Thurman, author of Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms A moving and critical book, researched and narrated with great care. Caplans storytelling welcomes any reader interested in unabridged accounts of music history, and honors individuals who enriched the art form of opera but often were discredited or discounted. The act of liberating oneself through ones voice is as intrinsic to opera as it is to the legacy of B/black diasporic people. As a musician who has often felt frustrated when seeking information on and inspiration in the complexities of the American musical landscape, I am so grateful to now have this book documenting our precious, radical history. -- Julia Bullock, Grammy Awardwinning classical singer Get in the crowd with Lucy Caplan. In this brilliant book, Caplan excavates the remarkable history of a vibrant, bustling, furiously creative array of cultural and social actors, African Americans who embraced opera not only to experiment with aesthetics but also to theorize Black life, Black politics, the Black historical past, and Black futures. That they so often executed this ambitious work as an inspired form of collaborationrather than as a solitary endeavoris just one of the many revelations in this luminous study of a history hidden in plain sight. -- Daphne A. Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution Operas death knell has been ringing for decades, and artists like myself have toiled with how or if to save it. Lucy Caplans fervent investigation unearths and honors operas excluded Black cultural history in a way that illuminates a path to how opera can and should exist today. -- Davóne Tines, Grammy Awardnominated classical singer Lucy Caplans fantastic new study illuminates a revolutionary and vibrant artistic community. Joining individual aspirations and institutional grit, Black artists dramatically influenced operatic traditions in the United States, where the opera house itself became a site of struggle and transformation. As Caplan shows, bel canto singing by Black performers and arias sketched by sepia hands were countercultural acts brimming with liberatory fantasies that rode on every high C. This book is operatic! -- Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop
