Metropolitan Opera: You're on Notice!
The Metropolitan Opera A friend said to me the other day, "With all of your talent and accomplishments, if you'd been born white and male, you'd be a billionaire by now!" I thought about it, and realized that she was right. I've had to contend with racism in some form or other every day of my life, to say nothing of the sexism. I've watched my white colleagues take advantage of having powerful family connections. I've watched as my Jewish friends have made influential contacts at their synagogues. I've read how powerful white male conductors have mentored and invited my young white male colleagues to fill life-changing appointments. White friends have been invited to fill faculty positions at conservatories and summer festivals, and no one seems to notice that these faculties are lily-white, or that they don't represent the racial diversity of our nation. Now that most concerts and performances have been cancelled for the rest of the ye...