Every Voice with Terrance McKnight

“Every Voice with Terrance McKnight” spotlights the diverse stories and perspectives that reflect the whole of the classical music experience. In this radio special of the final chapter in the season, we discuss Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio” and ask big questions about the future of opera.

In this radio special of “Every Voice,” Terrance McKnight investigates Verdi’s “Aida” and the complicated history behind this African love story.

In this radio special of “Every Voice,” Terrance McKnight turns toGiuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” and how this centuries-old story shapes today’s narratives around Black success.

Classical music is full of hidden voices. In this radio special of “Every Voice with Terrance McKnight,” enjoy the season’s journey into Mozart’s "The Magic Flute," its investigation into the overlooked character of Monostatos, and what his portrayal teaches us about ourselves.

With troubled origins, opera has often reduced people of African descent to racist stereotypes. Can this art form find its place in a world where many are striving for inclusivity and beauty?

In “Abduction from the Seraglio,” Pasha Selim subjects both European women and men of African descent to servitude within his haram. But their dramatic treatment — which characters get to enjoy freedom, which characters do not — tend to uphold stereotypes of race, class and sex.

Mozart socialized with Black visionaries and drafted the abolitionist opera “Zaide.” But when it came to making a profit, “Abduction from the Seraglio” subjected enslaved characters to the same brutal realities inflicted on enslaved people across the world in the late eighteenth century. .

During Mozart’s brief life, he encountered several artists of African descent who were important to the arts and cultural scene in Europe. So, why in his operas, such as “The Magic Flute” and “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” are people from this background depicted as slaves and miscreants?

Giuseppe Verdi's “Aida” depicts an Africa with Ethiopians in chains. In reality, that was an imperialist dream unrealized by Egyptian Khedive Ismail Pasha and the American Confederates that colluded with him.

How Verdi’s “Aida,” composed in the 1860s for the European elite in Egypt, was born out of the American Civil War.