Kathleen Battle, Opera Buffa, The Met, and....Disney World....

 

On Sunday September 8th, PBS re-aired the beautiful concert from 1990 sung by opera royalty Kathleen Battle and Jesse Norman, with wonderful additional  retrospective commentary from both those who worked on the concert and those who were impacted by it. The concert was, and is, considered a watershed moment, in which African American spirituals were (rightfully) elevated to the prestige of European classical sacred and choral music in none other than the prestigious Carnegie Hall. The new retrospective special went deeper into the cultural and historical significance of not only the music that Battle and Norman were singing,  but it being sung at a venue like Carnegie Hall.

The same week, James Baskett's image was removed from a museum exhibit wall at Disney World.

Yes, these two things are related.

First of all, before moving forward in this essay, I would just like to stress that I am not Black or Black American. I do not speak for or over Black voices. I will be regularly deferring to Black voices and scholars. What I am qualified to speak to comes from someone who studies media and music history. As a classical musician,  one of my focus areas is American classical music and the preservation thereof. As an Indigenous person, I have a deep and vested interest in cultural preservation and revitalization, regardless of whose culture it is. I believe in looking at these things through the lens of empathy and nuance, for recognizing that while something may be problematic and harmful, that might not be the only part of its story. I hope that makes sense.

Opera in the United States dates back to the 18th century, and, as with many of the European opera traditions, is deeply rooted in folk melodies. (This was very commonly utilized in Mozart's time by Mozart himself), and is especially prevalent in opera buffa.) Examples of famous American composers who used this format are Carlisle Floyd in his opera Susannah (which is filled with Appalachian folk melodies), and Douglas Moore in his opera The Ballad of Baby Doe. 

However, one of the defining characteristics of  American opera is the employment and utilization of jazz and gospel music, and there are nonesuch great examples of this than the operas written by Black American composers before the Second World War.

One of the first (and finest) examples of this is Scott Joplin's 1911 opera Treemonisha. (While I am loath to use Wikipedia as a source, it does its job.) It is Joplin's only surviving opera, and what an opera it is. Many have questioned why it does not find itself in the 'most performed' category of opera, with other's referring to it as "America's Magic Flute." It is a stunning "ragtime opera," that holds many of the conventions of European operas, including glorious recitatives, arias, and choral work. It never received a full staging during Joplin's lifetime, and was only rediscovered and  fully mounted in the 1970's. 

Joplin was not only the original king of pop music. In fact, his archives (most of which unfortunately have been lost to time) included European-style arias, art songs, and choral pieces. He was incredibly frustrated with his own works, and ended up destroying many of them himself. His work was later not seen as worth saving (and the executor of his estate ended up throwing away much of his work). This is not to diminish his contributions to popular music, or to dismiss his intricate works as tawdry by any means. 

Treemonisha has since been revived and retooled by the likes such as the St. Louis Opera Company. And, rightfully so, because it is a stunning work. It has the Carmen effect, in which every piece of music is just  hit after hit, the Rumours by Fleetwood Mac of operas. But why isn't it a hit? Why isn't it as regularly performed as Porgy and Bess? It eclipses Porgy and Bess by leaps and bounds, and Porgy and Bess is not without controversy. Yet, The Met cannot seem to let it go (and this is no slam against Gershwin), but yet has finally, in 2021, mounted an opera that was written by a Black composer, despite contributions from Black artists as early as the 1890's.

Yet even works like Porgy and Bess and Four Saints in Three Acts, which were operas written for all-Black casts, but written by white composers taking on the (perceived) vocal mannerisms of Black Americans were not without actual Black influence and excellence working on those projects. Esteemed choral director Eva Jessye worked on both Four Saints in Three Acts and Porgy and Bess.

Another opera that found itself the product of the  Harlem Renaissance, and also sought to elevate the Black American cultural, choral, and other musical traditions to those of the European operatic traditions was H.L. Freeman's masterpiece Voodoo. Voodoo has also seen some recent revitalization efforts. Like Treemonisha, it's also set in the Reconstruction era South (which both Freeman and Joplin would have been familiar with on a personal level and the time their operas were composed) Freeman has seen a production of Wagner's Tannhäuser in his youth, which inspired him to compose operas. You can hear a little of Wagner's influence in his work, only the exhaustingly bombastic and bloated aspects of Wagner are replaced with the gorgeous utilization of African American music and rhythms. 

One of the other musical projects to come out of the Harlem Renaissance was the Hall Johnson choir, helmed by  Hall Johnson. Johnson sought to elevate African American choral traditions to those of European composers, and toured Europe with his arrangements. For one of  the first times in history, African American choral works were held in the same esteem as those by Mozart and Bach. The Hall Johnson choir also had a pretty stacked filmography.

The Hall Johnson choir can be heard in Disney films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, and the one I won't mention by name for fear I would incur the wrath of obnoxious grandstanding Disney Adults.

Let's talk about Dumbo. Dumbo was a little film that could, much like its main character. Clocking in at a little over and hour, Dumbo was a watercolour-based B-team budget film that saved a studio. It was the only financial success they had had since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as all of their other ventures to that point had been colossal financial failures. It is the story of deformity, disability, segregation, prejudice, animal welfare, parental incarceration, and systemic marginalization--pretty sophisticated stuff for a movie made in the early 1940's about a baby elephant! Dumbo's best friends are his mother, a mouse from the poor part of New York City, and... crows. *deep breath*

The depictions of the crows in Dumbo may not have aged perfectly, or even well, for that matter, and I think that's... fine, actually. I think it shows evolution of a healthy society progressing forward. We should always be moving forward. However, I do think there is a danger in looking at something like this through the lens of absolutes. Yes, absolutely, the shucking and jiving crows lead by Jim Crow leave a lot to be desired in 2024. However, there is more going on than that. All of the crows, except for Jim Crow (who was played by Cliff Edwards), were voiced by Black voice actors, which included the Hall Johnson choir. The scene was choreographed by the Jackson Brothers, who were contemporaries of the Nicholas Brothers. More than the reductive THING BAD!! 😡😡😡😡😡, maybe we can recognize that two things can be true at the same time. I am not saying that the crows are perfect or a good thing,  I am saying that, while something can be flawed, good things can exist in tandem at the same time--like Eva Jessye's work on Porgy and Bess.

More than one thing can be true at the same time.

Which circles back around to James Baskett. 

James Baskett was the first Black man ever to be awarded (a rightfully deserved) Oscar, handed to him by the absolutely star struck Ingrid Bergman. It was an "honorary" Oscar for his portrayal as Uncle Remus, but it was more than that. It wasn't a "pity Oscar," is was an absolutely rightfully deserved award to a true consummate artist (who should have won for Harlem is Heaven), a man who was dying and might not have won in a competitive category because of the prejudice of the time. James Baskett was also a voice for one of the crows in Dumbo, and was Uncle Remus in that other film I am afraid to mention by name.

Before Valerie Stewart passed away last year, I had the privilege and honor of working on a project with her to restore the musicals written by her father and his good friend, Johnny Lee, who was the voice of Brer Rabbit to Nick Stewart's Brer Bear. They were lifelong friends, along with James Baskett. They had done radio, vaudeville, and other theatre together. According to Valerie, Stewart, Lee, and Baskett had gone to Walt Disney over the script's dialog and were given permission to alter it as needed to be closer to their own vernacular. The film came out in 1946; we still have animated television shows in the year of our Lord 2024 where wh!te actors give minstrelsy performances of Black characters

Stewart also used the money he earned from his work at Disney to open the Ebony Showcase Theatre in Los Angeles, which gave opportunities to actors of all ethnic backgrounds a chance to play roles that were other than stereotypes. 

Let's circle back to the removal of Baskett from a wall at the museum. In fact, if these images should exist anywhere in the present day, they should be in museums. 

(Because removing images of your grave mistakes speaks more to running away from and trying to absolve yourself from responsibility than it does actually handling the problem.)

Wouldn't it have been a better statement than to replace the image from the film of James Baskett playing the stereotype with an image of him as James Baskett the person getting his rightfully deserved Oscar? Is it too much to say that, yes, this film is badly aged and insensitive, but Baskett was a great man and a great artist who deserves every accolade? 

I also find it very interesting that that film  is heavily referenced Black-helmed media, such as the works of Greg Anderson Elysée (who certainly knows what he's talking about), or the Tristin Strong series (which is ironically published BY Disney), LA Opera's production of Highway One, USA, or the comic book series Bayou--as merely just a thing that exists. Which, in many ways, makes sense, because, for better or for worse, the Disney version has subsequently influenced almost all iterations there after (which is another reason why Disney should pony up and take actual responsibility for the damage they've caused).

I am not an apologist for that film, and I am not saying that it's good or bad or neither. I am saying it's a thing that exists. I am saying that even in flawed things that there are still things worth saving. We can recognize that something is imperfect, if not outright deeply flawed or painful, but even in that pain, there can be things that are worth preserving and reexamining. Before some obnoxious, grandstanding, self-riteous Disney Adult tries to paint me as some Lost Cause apologist (y'all are so damn weird, not sorry lol), you don't have to glorify a film (or anything else) as an untouchable, perfect entity, and you also don't have to only see it through the lens of the absolute Thing All Bad 😡😡😡.I think that even with something as deeply flawed as that film that the work of Black artists who worked on it is worth saving. I think we should care about the artists, the people, who are often sidelined or left behind in efforts to make people feel good about themselves.

I firmly believe that the work of artists who existed and worked and created under impossible circumstances in challenging times should be celebrated and remembered--and preserved. Even if that work is attached to something deeply flawed, the contributions of marginalized artists deserve to be preserved, studied, and celebrated. The profound lack of empathy for these people is astounding.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that I do not think that the only way that non-Eurocentric forms of music can only be validated through  favorable comparisons to Western Classical Music. I do, however, believe that they should be held in the same esteem and regard.

Kathleen Battle and Jesse Norman are two members of opera royalty who brought some of the world's most beautiful music, which has never been sung better, to one of the most prestigious venues in the United States, let alone the world. This happened through the work of other Black artists. Even through the pain of some of its origins, the music was, and is, worth preserving. It's worthy of the prestige and the acclaim. It's also directly related to the works of Scott Joplin, H.L. Freeman, and the Hall Johnson choir. It's directly related to invaluable contributions of Eva Jessye. Just as the way opera is performed now, which is a preservation of hundreds of years of culture and legacy rooted in European cultures, traditions, and legacies, this Black American music should have the same. I think that non-Black artists should also be fighting for this preservation. We should be using nuance and empathy to make space for people who are risk of being forgotten to make other people feel good about themselves.

(Speaking of which, I had a former (non-Black) vocal coach who insisted on slaughtering these spirituals and even badly emulating the vocal arrangements of Kathleen Battle. Proof that context always matters. 😬)

Edit: it's been brought to my attention that the copyright for Porgy and Bess says that cast must be an all Black cast. 💖love that