In this six-part beginner’s guide series, join Associate Director of Community Engagement Lokela Alexander Minami for lively and informative multimedia presentations that will help you make sense of this larger-than-life art form by giving you some essential terms and taking you on a listening tour of some of the most popular operas in the repertoire. Drawing on Seattle Opera’s extensive audio and photo archive, this series will introduce you to some of the most beloved composers from opera history, including Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini, whose classic works you are sure to encounter again and again on any opera stage. You will also discover the rich, living, and continuously evolving tradition of opera today, and by the end of the series, you will be well on your way to becoming an opera aficionado.
Finally, the class will go one step further by helping you think critically about opera as a living art form that interacts with society around it. We discuss some of the broader issues in the world of opera and the sociopolitical forces that have shaped it throughout its history, including representations of race, gender, and culture on the opera stage.
Class Recordings
Each class session will be recorded and made available within a few days following each class.