NBC TV, Leontyne Price and Opera Casting in the Civil Rights Era

About

The year 2020 saw the confluence of two important trends in opera: the rise of broadcasting through livestreams and digital productions, and the demand for greater casting of singers of color. Both of these movements were born of necessity as opera companies adapted in the wake of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. These developments have often been treated as new and unconnected, but there has been a longstanding tradition of using media technology to reform operatic culture, including when it comes to racial justice. This lecture by Danielle Ward-Griffin, assistant professor of musicology at Rice University, examines television and its influence on opera casting practices during the early civil rights movement. She traces how the NBC’s color-blind “Integration without Identification” policy was praised for eliminating stereotypes and hiring Black performers in its prestige arts programs. Focusing on the NBC Opera appearances of Leontyne Price, especially her debut in “Tosca” (1955), Ward-Griffin’s research explores how television promised new opportunities for Black singers at a time when they were still barred from many roles in the opera house. Drawing upon the NBC History Files and kinescopes from the Library of Congress, as well as NBC papers from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Ward-Griffin argues that television — particularly its aesthetic of “realism”– influenced the perception of Price’s performances, and by extension, ideas of who could credibly…

Archive

Library of Congress, in Library of Congress: talks and concerts

Licence or status

Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Rights statement

While the Library of Congress created most of the videos in this collection, they include copyrighted materials that the Library has permission from rightsholders to present. Rights assessment is your responsibility. The written permission of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. There may also be content that is protected under the copyright or neighboring-rights laws of other nations. Permissions may additionally be required from holders of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights). Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. However, the information we have may not be accurate or…

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed