American Jewish Women and New York Opera Culture

Lecture Co-sponsored by Jewish Music Forum and the American Society for Jewish Music Admission: Free Watch the video

Jewish women have worked as opera singers, vocal coaches, seamstresses, artist managers, conductors, and concert organizers; attended opera performances; purchased opera glasses, gowns, and records; read columns about opera singing in Jewish newspapers; and taught immigrant youth about the genre’s uplifting power. Synagogue sisterhoods and local chapters of Hadassah and the National Council of Jewish Women featured opera singers and repertoire at their fundraisers, and used the Met’s stage and assembly rooms to host their events.

Join YIVO for a lecture exploring Jewish women and opera in which Dr. Samantha M. Cooper (Harry Starr Postdoctoral Fellow of Judaica, Harvard University) draws on archival and press findings to shed light on the enduring relationship that Jewish women nurtured with New York opera culture from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. A response to this talk will be provided by Judith Pinnolis (Associate Director of Instruction and Engagement at Berklee College of Music/The Boston Conservatory at Berklee).

This event is part of Carnegie Hall’s season-long exploration of the many contributions that women have made to the world of music.

About the Speaker

Dr. Samantha M. Cooper is a historical musicologist who specializes in American Jewish cultural history. She received her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology at New York University in 2022 for her doctoral dissertation, entitled “Cultivating High Society: American Jews engaging European Opera in New York, 1880-1940.” Samantha’s research has been supported by fellowships from the Center for Jewish History, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, P.E.O. International, the American Academy for Jewish Research, and Temple University’s Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of the Society for American Music, Journal of Synagogue Music, Journal of Musicological Research, Society for American Music Bulletin, and Musica Judaica. Samantha currently serves as the Associate Executive Director of the Jewish Music Forum, a Project of the American Society for Jewish Music.