{"id":42311,"date":"2015-08-19T01:52:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T01:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42311"},"modified":"2015-08-19T01:52:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T01:52:18","slug":"othellos-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42311","title":{"rendered":"Othello\u2019s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Othello\u2019s Daughter<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New Yorker<\/a>
\n2013-07-29<\/p>\n

Alex Ross<\/strong><\/a>, Music Critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nAldridge, circa 1865, and his daughter Luranah, a singer, in an undated image.<\/em>
\nCredit Photographs by Billy Rose Theatre Division \/ The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Mccormick Library of Special Collections \/ Northwestern University Library<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The rich legacy of Ira Aldridge<\/a>, the pioneering black Shakespearean.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1896, a thirty-six-year-old opera singer named Luranah Aldridge travelled to Germany to prepare for performances of Wagner\u2019s<\/a> \u201cRing of the Nibelung<\/a>,\u201d at the Bayreuth Festival<\/a>. Dozens of young singers had made such a journey before her: thirteen years after Wagner\u2019s death, Bayreuth had become a summit of the operatic world. Aldridge, though, was of mixed race: an English native, she was the daughter of an African-American and a Swede. The casting of a nonwhite performer in Wagner\u2019s Nordic-Teutonic saga might have been expected to arouse opposition, given the notorious racism of the composer and many of his followers, yet an advance guide to the 1896 festival treats Aldridge simply as a promising novelty:<\/p>\n

A name that may well ring strangely in the ears of even the most observant art lovers is that of Luranah Aldridge, who will sing one of the eight Valkyries<\/a>. Of Luranah Aldridge one cannot say that she did not come from far off, as she hails\u2014from Africa. She is the daughter of the African tragedian Ira Aldridge and studied singing in Germany, England and France, and has appeared with great success in operas and concerts outside of Germany. She is praised as the possessor of a true contralto voice with a wide range. In the course of the festival there will be an opportunity to put these statements to the test.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The singer fell sick during rehearsals and did not perform that summer. Despite encouragement from Cosima Wagner<\/a>, the composer\u2019s widow, Aldridge faded from view. A few reference works mention her; otherwise, she has vanished from the historical record…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Othello\u2019s Daughter The New Yorker 2013-07-29 Alex Ross, Music Critic Aldridge, circa 1865, and his daughter Luranah, a singer, in an undated image. Credit Photographs by Billy Rose Theatre Division \/ The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Mccormick Library of Special Collections \/ Northwestern University Library The rich legacy of Ira Aldridge, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,28,8,10,20,25],"tags":[20749,20738,20750,1392,16819,3886],"class_list":["post-42311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-europe","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-usa","category-women","tag-alex-ross","tag-ira-aldridge","tag-luranah-aldridge","tag-music","tag-new-yorker","tag-the-new-yorker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42312,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42311\/revisions\/42312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}