Honoring the Process

Operas that are hundreds of years old were written not only to reflect the human condition, but were also reflective of a shared culture at a point in time long ago since past. With older repertoire, sometimes it’s much easier to identify what might need additional thought and discussion in a theatrical setting. Racism, misogyny, oppression – conditions that still exist in our shared history can more easily be identified by a modern sensibility in older operas. But as we often find, culture shifts rapidly and requires examination of pieces that were composed more recently in the last one hundred, fifty, or even five years.  

At Minnesota Opera, we have routinely reimagined history through the lens of how we experience society today; this is baked into our mission and values. We cast the best artists and greatest storytellers who are representative of as many modern perspectives as we can. In short, we want our casts to look like the world around us – and in doing so, we can create complications with certain narratives when considering the original time periods of existing operas. One of the scenes in Trouble in Tahiti depicts Dinah recounting her experience of seeing a movie that clearly contains stereotypical depictions of imagined island culture, both in her sung words and in the musical score. Part of our process is to examine who is telling the story and from what perspective. In this instance, Sam and Dinah, as originally written in 1952, would not have necessarily been portrayed by an interracial couple as they are in this production. The landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia that outlawed bans on interracial marriage was not decided until 1967, fourteen years after Bernstein composed the work. For much of the opera’s history, the character of Dinah would have regularly been portrayed by a white actor who visits a film that is clearly capitalizing on the worst stereotypes and prejudices of island culture – and even though Dinah declares it a “terrible awful movie,” she clearly finds value in the films ability to provide her with a momentary escape from her strained home life. Her perspective in the 1950s would be different than a woman of color performing Dinah today. And as with all characters in this artistic medium and others, even our most beloved characters are flawed. They’re made to help us ask questions and reflect on our own biases and actions. And it’s the best characters that make us feel things like anger, empathy, and introspection. Dinah’s character does just that. In preparing to produce this piece, is it our responsibility to interrogate whether her biases are a dramaturgical issue that we are obligated to solve?   

In navigating a path to authentically perform a work in which there is cultural stereotyping, there was much thoughtful conversation among our team of artists and staff members to explore every avenue possible to us. Our realization has been that we do not have to alter or fix history, nor do we wish to excuse it or erase it. While we don’t want to promote or celebrate harmful stereotypes, we recognize that those who ignore history deprive themselves and others an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of previous generations. In the absence of historical learning, the potential exists to create an unfortunate cycle where society replicates behaviors that are well within its capability to improve upon. The struggle to acknowledge that we are not perfect – and maybe can be more quick to identify when our own behaviors are harmful to others – hopefully leads us to a more just and joyful life. Taking the time to make space for these conversations represents a path to honor our process inclusive of our artistic goals and our company values.   

-Ryan Taylor, President and General Director