Scarlet Masque Theatre Journal New Beginnings and Fond Farewells Vol. 1 | Page 32

Jared Cottingham
THE-303
11/08/16
The Met, NYCO, and New York City’s Contributions to Opera
American opera, like many other domestic art forms, has its creative hub
centered in New York City. The city itself developed its own operatic sub-genre as
American popular opera began to expand after World War II (Dizikes, 1993). This sub-
genre grew to compositionally evolve from rather dramatic vocal performance that
heavily relied on narrative, into what we would deem modern musical theatre. The
importance of this construct lies within it’s influence on the compositional form of
modern musical theatre, as well as in its disparities from operatic performance both
during its creation and in the contemporary landscape. The two principle companies
currently in existence for what would be deemed more traditional operatic performance
than the New York opera sub-genre itself within the city are the New York City Opera
(NYCO) and the Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan Opera has served as a beacon
of American operatic achievement for many years, attracting audiences from across the
world and boasting the world’s most lauded performers, conductors, and designers. In
slightly different fashion, the New York City Opera was founded on the principle of
making opera accessible to all audiences, frequently providing young American singers
the exposure necessary to break out onto the operatic scene.
Though the two companies present fairly different approaches to performance
and conceptual design, both serve as magnificent examples of domestic achievement in
the opera world and have affected their respective artistic communities. Within this
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