Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention

For many instructors today, teaching canonical dramatic repertoire can be a fraught proposition: from Don Giovanni to South Pacific, key works in the history of opera and musical theater present challenges related to gender, race, colonialism, class and more. Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention: A Teacher's Guide offers instructors a toolkit with which to productively confront the canon, directly engaging in the difficult conversations this repertoire can prompt. Informed by evidence from contemporary and historical context, librettos, and production history, instructors will be able to confidently help students consider best practices for the future. This book presents fifteen case studies of exemplars from the opera and musical theater canon, which showcase a close study of the music and text in service of addressing the most provocative aspects. With nuanced explorations of each work, the authors offer a variety of pathways to draw connections between their content and the present day. Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention is a vital resource for college-level music history and appreciation instructors that will enable them to teach canonic repertoire as part of contemporary curricula, and to help students engage critically with these works, their historical impact, and ongoing relevance.

Catherine Coppola is Permanent Lecturer in Music and Chair of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program at Hunter College of CUNY. Elizabeth A. Wells is Professor of Music History and Musicology at Mount Allison University.

I. Gender & Class 1. Don Giovanni: Beyond the Hashtag Mozart 2. Carmen: Fate or Choice? Bizet 3. Oklahoma!: Rewriting Race and Gender Rodgers & Hammerstein 4. Company: Changing Perspectives on Marriage Sondheim 5. My Fair Lady: Class and Colonialism Lerner & Loewe II. Race and Presumed Whiteness 6. Magic Flute: Whose Enlightenment? Mozart 7. Aida: Race and Empire-"Caught Up in the Colors of the Story" Verdi 8. Porgy and Bess: Who Tells the Story of Systemic Racism? Gershwin & Gershwin 9. Show Boat: The Dynamics of the South Kern & Hammerstein 10. West Side Story: Whose Stories? Bernstein & Sondheim III. Colonialism and History Rewritten 11. Madama Butterfly: Imperialism and Gender Puccini 12. Tristan and Isolde: From Fierce Fighter to Transcendent Redeemer Wagner 13. Giulio Cesare: Cleopatra Resists Handel 14. The King And I: The Colonial Mask Comes Off Rodgers and Hammerstein 15. Hamilton: A new era? Miranda