Definitional exclusion in opera and classical music is built in. The same thing here could be said about instrumentation, language, and vocal type. There are whole classes of behaviors we do to create implicit exclusion (i.e. definitional exclusion) in opera & classical music. 1/
I explored two in a couple of threads a while back. The first was "Classical Music, the Perpetual Foreigner Trope, and Colonialism" and the second was "What is #ClassicalMusic?" In both threads, the idea is that exclusion is implicit and primarily along racial lines. 2/
In the "What is #ClassicalMusic?" thread I used clear examples of works performed by different types of orchestras to show how what we mean by classical music is contingent on instrumentation. Since different cultural groups have different kinds of... 3/
...orchestras the simple act of defining a composition, dependent on what type of orchestra typically performs it can be a racially exclusionary act. Using caveats, qualifiers, and hedges in our language about classical music, we're essentially... 4/
defending the (definitional) border of classical music from foreign incursion. I used some examples in the thread which could be useful as a pedagogic device for discussing colonialism, power, and exclusion happens in language. There are plenty of other examples to be... 5/
...found. This takes us right to what was actually the first thread--the one on "Classical Music, the Perpetual Foreigner Trope, and Colonialism"--in which I used some examples from opera to show how insular classical music tends to be. 6/
One of my all time favorite operas is Uzeyir Hajibeyov's "Leyli və Məcnun" (Layla and Majnoon) from 1908. Libretto in Azeri, with blended instrumentation including those found in the indigenous Art Music style of Azerbaijan, Mugham, as well as... 7/
...Mugham vocals. I contrasted the work with Puccini's "Turandot" (1926), which is also based on source material traced to Niẓāmi Ganjavi but performed much more frequently. This also point to how appropriation works when it's in its harmful form (subject for another thread). 8/
We in the classical music field in the Western world are still so incredibly insular and can hardly appreciate how classical music has developed and evolved in other countries--sometimes in wonderful hybrid forms that we barely recognize--which means that exclusion can... 9/
...happen in bizarre and implicitly racial ways. We should also be talking about "canonical" instrumentation and ensemble types; cultural imperialism in language (for vocal genres); and even the types of stories being told and by whom. 10/end
P.S. This reminds me that I need to finish my list of operas with first usage of various non-canonical operatic languages.
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