The acronym “DEI” (“Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”) is fast approaching the same condition of futility in usage as “woke,” with which it is entangled in the common perception. Though its importance as an element of the current crisis in the performing arts is the inescapable topic of debate among professionals and attentive followers of those disciplines, its influence is virtually unacknowledged—I would almost say suppressed—in mainstream reportage and analysis. That is because acknowledgement of it as anything more than a minor factor is unsettling for the presumptions of moral rectitude (of “virtue,” as in “virtue signaling,” another abused locution) held not only by activist social warriors, who see a favorable field of battle lying open before them, and the opportunistic camp followers— who, as ever, trail them at a safe distance—but by the many liberal-minded folks who are sincerely concerned with simple fairness in our society. The former, I believe, are unapproachable. Neither militant faith nor easy opportunity can be productively reasoned with. Among the latter, though, there should be some who are willing to concede the complexities, contradictions, and (sometimes) unintended consequences of the energies that have been unleashed by the corrective movements of recent times.

Those energies have invaded all aspects of public life. Every day brings fresh reports of ideologically provoked incidents in the fields of academe, corporate life, medical and other scientific research, publishing (“sensitivity readers”), sports, and politics themselves (not an exhaustive list). They add up to (and these are not hyperbolic words) a regime of intimidation and loyalty-oath credentialing, on pain of career termination for individuals and loss of funding for organizations that do not jump through the designated hoops. That is nowhere more true than in the artistic sphere. And within that sphere, the performing arts present complexities, contradictions, and vulnerabilities peculiar to them, owing to the fact that they require renewal—re-interpretation—through representation. I attempted to grapple with some of the implications of all this in The Racial Moment and Opera, whose date (9/11/20) reminds us that it was written at a time of extreme social hypertension (still early in the global pandemic, and in the immediate aftermath of the protests over the George Floyd murder), with its resultant sudden acceleration in the social justice movements. There is nothing in it I would retract today. But we are now three more years down the Post Road, trying to get a handle on the effects of that time—on which are permanent and which not, on which seem socially and culturally desirable and which not. The racial component of the DEI triumvirate remains prominent, but at least in the arts and humanities, no longer dominates those represented by the activisms denoted “#MeToo” and “LGBTQ,” with the latter’s trans element especially at issue recently.

Opera is the frame of reference for everything I write. But opera’s fate cannot be detached from that of the arts and humanities in general, nor that from their broader sociopolitical context. Thus, in The Racial Moment and Opera I found myself addressing not only Marian Anderson’s Metropolitan Opera debut as a “racist” event, but bitter skirmishes in music theory, the minority hiring practices of orchestras, the toppling of statues and monuments, and programming and casting policies in the spoken theatre. Theatre is getting most of the arts-disaster reportage in our mainstream press these days. The New York Times published no fewer than five substantial pieces on the crisis in the non-profit theatre sector within a five weeks’ span (July 23-Aug. 29), and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that in that interval and the months preceding, it published none on the equally dire predicaments among our opera and dance companies or our symphony orchestras—references and observations here and there, but no dedicated articles. From a catering-to-the-readership POV (read: sales), it’s understandable. Most of our theatre (and a fast-growing portion of it, even among the non-profits) belongs to the contemporary popular culture, and interpenetrates with the worlds of television and the movies. So its problems, and their present rawness, are relatable even to people who never themselves touch the stuff.