Historian and academic Lucy Caplan offers a groundbreaking examination of African American contributions to opera during the early 20th century in her book Dreaming in Ensemble. Throughout, her meticulous research illuminates the stories of Black composers, performers, critics and educators who cultivated a vibrant operatic tradition despite systematic exclusion from mainstream institutions.

At the heart of Caplan’s narrative is what she terms a “Black operatic counterculture”, wherein African-American artists harnessed opera’s grandeur to express the complexities of Black existence. Her scholarship spotlights pioneering composers like Harry Lawrence Freeman and Shirley Graham Du Bois, whose works boldly interpreted Black diasporic history while challenging prevailing narratives and asserting a distinct cultural identity.

The book also explores how performers such as Caterina Jarboro and Florence Cole-Talbert navigated the racially charged role of Aida, confronting and subverting limitations imposed by a segregated society. Equally important is Caplan’s attention to critics Sylvester Russell and Nora Holt, whose writings in the Black press provided nuanced analyses that enriched discourse surrounding opera within African-American communities.

Caplan’s scholarship is both comprehensive and revelatory, unearthing stories of Black artists whose contributions have been unjustly marginalised in conventional opera histories....