Renegade Opera’s Impact

Renegade Opera fosters change in our community with collective artistic experiences, building strong communities and championing artistic expression. We thrive by creating socially conscious works of music theater that resonate, invigorate, challenge, and welcome artists and audiences to envision a new way of making opera. Renegade Opera produces performances that are accessible, impactful, and essential.

Collective Voices | Immersive Performance | Innovative Opera

Commitment to Anti-Racism

Land Acknowledgement

The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River creating communities and summer encampments to harvest and use the plentiful natural resources of the area.” (Portland Indian Leaders Roundtable, 2018) 

We thank the original caretakers of this land. We also want to recognize that Portland today is still a home of many diverse Native peoples who live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, and future.

Dear Friends of Renegade Opera,

As a predominantly white organization in a predominantly white city, we recognize that there is an urgent need for organizations like ours to dismantle the systems of oppression that perpetuate and reward racism in our communities, fields, and culture at large. It is our responsibility to interrogate how opera has historically been used to oppress and exclude people of color, specifically Black people, and how it continues to do so. The on-going oppression of BIPOC in opera permeates the stage, the pages of scores and libretti, and the classical music industry. We acknowledge the many steps between stating a commitment to dismantle these systems of oppression and actually doing so. It is our responsibility to put in the work to deliver “accessible opera” to our community.

While our first project, Justice or Mercy, tackles the subject of gender roles, it does not address issues of racial injustice. Moving forward, we commit to practicing activism that is truly intersectional by prioritizing BIPOC in our audition opportunities, hiring practices, and repertoire selection. It is our responsibility as artists and members of arts organizations to listen, learn, and speak out against injustice to make change. 

We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and with those risking their health and safety at protests across the nation to express their anger over the systemic oppression of BIPOC and to demand racial justice in the United States of America. 

Love,

The Renegade Opera Team
June 3, 2020