Music and State Power

A series of escalating controversies in recent years has brought unprecedented international attention to the Hungarian State Opera House and the historically marginalized repertoire of Hungarian opera. Major press outlets have scrutinized the overt and multifaceted relationship of the isolationist, right-wing government of Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party to opera, a genre into which it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars. Critics and reporters have focused on the most scandalous cases, such as _The New York Times_ coverage of the now infamous all-white _Porgy and Bess_production and its fallout; however, such reporting obscures how the regime has effected a comprehensive political stranglehold over operatic performance in Hungary. The goal of this paper is situate opera in current Hungarian cultural politics and to analyze Orbán's opera project more thoroughly by examining specific production choices at the Hungarian State Opera House. 


I take as a case study Péter Galambos's tendentious 2013 double-bill production of two Hungarian opera staples: Béla Bartók's _Bluebeard's Castle_and János Vajda's _Mario and the Magician_. This production is now firmly established in the State Opera's repertoire, yet both operas present ideological challenges to the political establishment; _Bluebeard's Castle_has been politically problematic in Hungary since its premiere in 1918, while Vajda's opera has become so only recently due to the anti-fascist agenda of the Thomas Mann source material. Rather than risk the potential backlash of outright banning these popular operas, the production instead manages to erase the unsettling social and psychological issues raised in each work via directorial choices and manipulation of mise-en-scéne. I argue that without changing a word of the libretto or a note of the score, Galambos nonetheless significantly reconfigures these cultural landmarks, aligning them with current Hungarian political orthodoxy. Although this case is specific to Hungarian political exigencies, the analysis offers a holistic approach to ongoing debates over opera's relationship to national politics by directing attention away from the score and onto the stage. 

Each June, the hip hop diplomacy program Next Level concludes its new artist orientation with a public cypher. This cypher--an informal hip hop performance--has grown from a spontaneous session held in a U.S. State Department lobby in 2014 to performances at the Lincoln Memorial. In recent years, the cypher has attracted a robust audience and generated positive feelings among artists and audiences alike. But behind the virtuosic dancing and energetic rapping, the collaborations that underlie this event remain delicate, even uneasy. The cypher is critical to a number of stakeholders, but ideas about what constitutes a successful cypher vary considerably. For Next Level artists, the cypher is an opportunity to build and bond with one another while showcasing their skills. Employees at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) view the cypher as an opportunity to reach diverse audiences, from passersby who are unfamiliar with cultural diplomacy to State Department officials who may be skeptical of government-supported hip hop programs. 


In 2019, the cypher took place in front of an iconic statue of Albert Einstein in Washington, DC. When Next Level artists and staff were told that the cypher needed to focus on science, some embraced the challenge, but others felt that their artistic labor had been exploited and the integrity of the cypher compromised. The statue's proximity to the State Department made it easy for employees to attend, but the oppressive summer heat made it challenging for artists, particularly dancers, to participate. Throughout the performance, one question hovered in the air: what purposes, and whom, did this cypher serve? 


Drawing upon scholarship on cultural friction (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing) and cultural diplomacy's institutional underpinnings (Danielle Fosler-Lussier), and based on interviews with many of the cypher's participants, this paper examines the complex collaborations within this performance and cultural diplomacy programs more broadly. I use this cypher to complicate monolithic conceptions of cultural diplomacy programs and the institutions that administer them, illuminating the ways in which state and non-state actors carve out spaces to achieve their own objectives. 

As the British Empire continued its labored decline in the early 1950s, its successor, the Commonwealth, remained somewhat ill-defined for the public. In response, governmental and cultural institutions launched numerous programs designed to teach the world about Britain's new geopolitical position and the Commonwealth's importance in mitigating the spread of communism. Scholars in Sound and Media Studies have observed the significance of radio and television networks in transmitting Commonwealth ideology during this period (Bailkin 2014, Potter 2012, Schaffer 2014), though their studies have mostly overlooked music as a conduit of identity. Considering the influence of BBC music programs in conveying Britishness to listeners in the early-twentieth century (Baade 2012, Doctor 2008), what are musicologists to make of music broadcasts designed to promote the Commonwealth? 


In this paper, I use records from the BBC Written Archive Centre and the UK National Archives to detail the complicated history of the BBC radio program _Commonwealth of Song_ (1953-61). Intermittently broadcast on the Light Programme and the General Overseas Service, this transmission featured musicians from across the British world--from Abuja to Australia--performing a mix of light-classical fare and music from their homelands. BBC administrators and government officers alike judged the series as instrumental in reinforcing the idea that the Commonwealth was a friendlier, more familial version of the Empire. Yet the program was plagued with behind-the-scenes debates concerning race and class representation, as well as the looming threat of Americanization. Which performers and repertoire should count as symbolic of the Commonwealth? I use archival records to analyze critical broadcasts in the program's history and their reception, demonstrating the shifting nature of ideological conflicts concerning the Commonwealth. I contend that anxieties surrounding _Commonwealth of Song_ mirrored broader disagreements encompassing British imperial identity in the mid-twentieth century, both among cultural elites and everyday Britons. Indeed, the musical Commonwealth was just as fraught as its political counterpart. By charting and contextualizing these disputes over artistic illustrations of the Commonwealth, I demonstrate the importance of music broadcasts as tools for teaching British geopolitical identity in the era of decolonization.