Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 addresses a stark reality: Opera Studies has neglected its children. The volume examines operas written for audiences of children, potentially with the involvement of child performers, and principally on subjects of central importance to childhood. Likewise, this volume talks about representations of children in operas intended for adults. The volume argues that opera scholarship has been complicit in othering children and childhoods while disregarding such works and focusing almost exclusively on white, Eurocentric traditions from the Global North. Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 proposes to tilt Opera Studies on its adult-centric axis by focusing on children as characters, creators, performers, and audiences. This volume explores the myriad relationships between those children and opera to address two fundamental questions: (1) What functions do children serve for opera? (2) What functions does opera serve for children? The volume answers these questions by bringing Opera Studies into dialogue with Childhood Studies. Contributors engage numerous other fields throughout the collection as well, such as Education, Ethnomusicology, Voice Studies, African American Studies, History, English and Comparative Literature, and Musicology. The essays encompass four continents’ repertoire since 1900 to propose a theory of childhood in Opera Studies, and welcoming further critical enquiry into new scholarly territory: the confluence of childhood and the operatic imaginary.</jats:p>