Small Opera, Big Voice: The Role of Small Opera Companies in Eliminating Elitism in Modern Opera Ecology

Abstract

In the United States, small opera companies are the veins that carry fresh blood throughout the American opera world, and their work benefits both their communities and the American opera ecology at large. Their size gives them organizational agility, making them more flexible and faster to act. They often serve as proving grounds for young singers, directors, conductors, and designers, and as conduits to the larger opera stage. Where larger companies battle the perception and reality of elitism, lack of diversity, entrenchment, colonialism, racism, and inaccessibility, smaller companies enjoy deeper engagement with their communities and serve a broader range of people in their mainstage programs. For these reasons and others, grassroots and experimental opera organizations are pivotal to eliminating elitism in the twenty-first-century opera ecology.