Zuly Inirio Is On A Mission To Correct Opera Music’s Historical Oversights

In her book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement, scholar Naomi André writes that “The history of black involvement with opera in the United States can be seen as a shadow culture to the all-white and segregated opera scene existing in the United States.” This perspective is shared by Zuly Inirio, Executive Director of Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) and founder of the Pittsburgh-based Afro-Latinx Song & Opera Project. As an Afro-Latina opera singer and scholar, Inirio’s presence in the genre has been marked by both invisibility and hypervisibility.

So how does a young Afro-Latinx scholar hailing from the Dominican Republic find herself interested in opera? For Inirio, it was the popular Hollywood movie Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts. In the film, Roberts’ character goes to the opera to see La traviata by Verdi.

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“My sister and I went to see that exact same opera, and I was absolutely thrilled,” Inirio says. “I vividly remember just falling in love with the staging, the set, the costumes, the acting, the orchestra, and the unimaginable power of the human voice amplified. I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is, but I want to do that.’”

Inirio, who holds a doctorate in musical arts/vocal performance, was always clear that singing was her calling—even though very often folk on the margins end up behind the scenes.

“Music was an integral part of my childhood and growing up,” Inirio says, “My parents once shared with me that before I even knew how to fully speak, I would listen to sounds in songs that stuck out to me to request my favorite song.”

With opera, though, Inirio notes, it was much more powerful.

“The power of the unamplified human voice made a huge impact on me,” she recalls. “Even in another language, it was an indescribable experience.”

In her recent TEDx talk at Carnegie Mellon University, “From Margins to Center Stage: Redefining Latinidad in Classical Music,” Inirio acknowledges a career in opera is not for the faint of heart, but, in fact, “a journey through the rich tapestry of human expression and artistic expression.”

“I see my presence in opera and classical music as inherently disruptive.”

While the names Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Grace Bumbry and Kathleen Battle are recognizable, if not well-known names amongst Black American opera singers, that’s not the case for Afro-Latina opera stars. Martina Arroyo, the child of an African American mother and a Puerto Rican father, who first performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1965, is a particular standout.

“I especially resonated with Martina Arroyo because she is a beautiful singer of African American and Puerto Rican descent, and so I was like, yeah, an Afro-Latina like me singing opera,” says Inirio.

Unfortunately for women of color in opera, talent is not the only way that they are judged. Some of the basics that some people of privilege take for granted in the genre – like hairstyle, weight, or name – have been boundaries to lock out Inirio and other Black women.

Inirio’s past roles include Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw, First Lady in The Magic Flute, Gertrud in Hansel und Gretel, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, among others. She is also well-versed in concert work and as a recitalist, most notably in the Lyrica Dialogues Organized by the Lyrica Society at Harvard in Boston, Mass. She’s been a soloist for the Verdi Requiem in Munich, Germany, at Allerheiligenkirche and has sung the role of the High Priestess and covered the title role in Verdi’s Aida with the Mythos Opera Festival in Sicily, Italy.

“I got lots of comments about the way that I should look, which usually was the complete opposite of what I actually look like,” Inirio says.

Inirio’s hair was deemed too curly and not professional—as if the CROWN Act, which prohibits discrimination based on hairstyle and hair texture, is somehow not applicable to the Opera House. Additionally, Inirio was told that her name was “too difficult to pronounce,” and that she should anglicize it, along with her body type.

“My body was too big for the stage,” she recalls being told, “so I should wear things that were flattering, and I should lose weight and all of these things.”

But for Inirio, her relationship with opera was always about more than professional success as a performer. As a scholar-practitioner, she had more urgent concerns. While studying for her doctorate in vocal performance, she was presented with an opportunity to do an all-Spanish language recital.

“I was inspired to make the opera and classical music space more equitable and accessible to all.”

“I was the very first person to do something like this in my predominantly white institution in the south,” Inirio says, reflecting on her time as a graduate student at Louisiana State University. “I was not supported in my growth there and was always made to feel that I needed to prove myself in that space.”

Still, Inirio says, she was “really excited to bring my culture and my identity into this genre and also sing my first language.”

Yet, like the dearth of Afro-Latinx performers on stage, there seemed to be a lack of an Afro-Latinx presence in the archive. On this point, Inirio put her scholarly training to work.

“I had this theory that with the colonial history that we have in the Caribbean and Latin America, there was just no way that there weren’t contributions by Latin Americans of African descent within the classical music space.”

Her research led her to the figure of Antonio Carlos Gomes, an Afro-Brazilian composer who was a contemporary of Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi during the so-called “golden age” of opera. Gomes is considered the first major opera composer of the New World, and his opera, Il Guarany, was premiered at La Scala in Milan in March of 1870.

In bridging both her scholarly and artistic endeavors, Inirio remains always on a larger mission. Earlier this summer she joined The Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh for a performance of Richard Strauss’ cycle Four Last Songs. And just last year, she obtained a master’s degree in social work, deepening her tool kit.

“I was inspired to make the opera and classical music space more equitable and accessible to all. I wanted to be the person that I needed through those difficult moments in my development.”

Inirio doesn’t shy away from the fact that she sees herself as an activist in the space.

“I see my presence in opera and classical music as inherently disruptive because of what this art form represents in people’s minds. It’s for a certain group of people within a certain class and that exclusivity is appealing to some of those folks.”

 “The power of the unamplified human voice made a huge impact on me.”

The Afro-Latinx Song and Opera Project, which seeks to commission operatic works that highlight the stories and concerns of the Afro-Latinx community and create opportunities for those interested in diversifying the classical music’s canon, is what Inirio’s activism looks like in an institutional form. To that end, in April, she collaborated with Resonance Works for a performance at Pittsburgh’s First United Methodist Church entitled “Tumbao: A Celebration of Afro-Latin Music.”

“My activism through my project is intersectional,” Inirio admits. “It touches on anti-Blackness in Latin American culture and the erasure of our cultural contributions; and it also centers Black people in Latin America who tend to be disenfranchised.”

Mark Anthony Neal is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University. He is the author of several books including the recent “Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Archive” and the longtime host of the video podcast “Left of Black.”

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