CULTURE

N.C. radio station reverses decision to withhold broadcast of contemporary Met operas

Updated October 5, 20238:30 PM ET
Anastasia Tsioulcas

This story was updated on Thursday, Oct. 5 at 8:25 p.m. ET.

On Thursday afternoon, a listener-supported station in North Carolina, WCPE, reversed its decision to withhold the broadcast of six contemporary operas this season from the Metropolitan Opera saying, "After careful deliberation, due consideration, and hearing from our supporters, listeners and the public, The Classical Station has decided to broadcast the entire 2023-2024 season of the New York Metropolitan Opera."

The reversal came after public outcry from notable figures including Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and author and journalist Celeste Headlee.

WCPE's protest came at a time when the Metropolitan Opera is eager to showcase its commitment to recently written operas and works from outside the traditional canon of music written by white men. Three of the operas that WCPE planned to reject in the 2023-24 season were written by Black or Mexican composers. This past April, WCPE also refused to broadcast another Met-produced opera written by a Black composer that included LGBTQ themes.

After NPR published its report and other media outlets published similar stories, WCPE put a banner on its homepage asserting that unnamed news stories had "greatly misrepresented" the contents of a letter it sent about these plans to the station's supporters in late August. WCPE did not specifically point to any alleged errors or misrepresentations in NPR's reporting.

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OCT 5, 2023

The Classical Station Reverses Course, Will Now Broadcast Entire Met Opera 2023-24 Season

By David Salazar

Days after proclaiming to the world that it would not broadcast the entire Metropolitan Opera 2023-24 season, The Classical Station has reversed course.

The organization made a formal announcement on its website noting that “After careful deliberation, due consideration, and hearing from our supporters, listeners, and the public, The Classical Station has decided to broadcast the entire 2023-2024 season of New York Metropolitan Opera.”

The organization, via a letter from WCPE general manager Deborah S. Proctor, had previously noted that it did not want to present “Dead Man Walking,” “Florencia en el Amazonas,” “El Niño,” “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” or “The Hours” because it found the content of the works to be offensive and not appropriate for children. The company cited themes of rape, violence, and suicide as reasons to avoid presenting those works, though in the case “Florencia en el Amazonas,” an opera in Spanish, there was no main reason given. The organization had also banned a broadcast from “Champion” last season due to “vulgar language” and “a theme unsuitable for a general audience.” Proctor, in an interview with NPR, even added that she wanted her programming to be “a safe refuge from the horrors of life… I have a moral decision to make here. What if one child hears this? When I stand before Jesus Christ on Judgement Day, what am I going to say?”

However, themes of the violence against women, suicide, exoticism, and rape didn’t seem to have the same resonance if they were presented in French or Italian, as Proctor proclaimed that the radio station would be ready to present “La Forza del Destino,” “Carmen,” “Roméo et Juliette,” “Turandot,” and “Madama Butterfly,” all operas that feature these themes and other kinds of adult content.

The Met Opera had replied to The Classical Station’s banning of the operas by noting that in all agreements with broadcasts, the companies had agreed to present the full season.