Jews in American Opera: From Importers to Innovators

Opera arrived in America as a European import, with Jews playing an essential role in its promotion from the moment Lorenzo da Ponte landed in Philadelphia. A century later, a generation of European refugees would take their operatic experience and use it to develop two of the most quintessentially American art forms: the Hollywood movie and the Broadway musical. But, contrary to what you may have heard, opera didn’t die in the aftermath. Rather, today’s American Jewish composers have been hard at work pushing boundaries and reconceptualizing just what opera can do.