215 Opera and Race : A Bulletin on an American University Course

In 2021 a new course was offered at Northwestern University titled Opera and Race.A revised version of the same course was given in 2023, this time as part of Decolonizing Opera, a larger series of special events and curricular offerings ex tending across a number of departments at the university, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.A third iteration of the course is scheduled for the Autumn of 2025.Throughout this history, several goals have been retained as of particular importance: 1) to identify and analyze the dramatic and musical depiction of racial difference in a number of operas either presently or formerly part of the standard performance canon; 2) to explore how these depictions of race have been played out in live performance, both historically and at the present time; 3) to connect these depictions to broader political and social phenomena such as colonialism, im perialism, and misogyny; 4) to explore solutions to the problematic aspects of these operas, and 5) to venture beyond the aforementioned canon to consider works, both older and more recent, that -for whatever reason -have been excluded from it.This essay summarizes the history and organization of the course, the various read ings and written assignments given to students, and the current prospects for in structional innovation in this field in a period of reactionary backlash.