Dreaming in Ensemble

“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. Caplan’s 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 one’s 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 Award–winning 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 collaboration—rather than as a solitary endeavor—is 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

“Opera’s death knell has been ringing for decades, and artists like myself have toiled with how or if to save it. Lucy Caplan’s fervent investigation unearths and honors opera’s excluded Black cultural history in a way that illuminates a path to how opera can and should exist today.” —Davóne Tines, Grammy Award–nominated classical singer

“Lucy Caplan’s 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, author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop