Angela Brown, the renowned African American soprano based in Indianapolis, lights up at the mention of her favorite subject: opera.
Having dedicated her life to the art form, she speaks with conviction when she says opera is for everybody.
“Yes, it is for everybody. And I can truly say that as opera singers, art directors, composers, and conductors, we are not operating on the brain or the heart — we are going for the emotion, the upliftment of mankind through this art form.
“It isn’t just sitting in a theatre and being entertained. But what does it do to you when you leave? How does it touch you?”
Concise operatic works like Charlie Parker’s Yardbird demonstrate how opera can tell the story of a real human being compellingly enough to send audiences home wanting to learn more.
“It didn’t take all night to get a good storyline,” Brown says. “You don’t have to sit for an 11-course meal when you can condense it to a couple of courses and still be satisfied.”
Organizations like the Indianapolis Opera ensure that the beauty of opera remains accessible — and Brown is central to that mission. As the company’s Artistic Cultural Ambassador, she has become one of its most visible and enduring figures.
Brown was born and raised in Indianapolis. Long before her career took off around 2004, she performed as a student with the Indianapolis Opera in the 1980s, appearing in the chorus of Aida in 1983. As her career flourished, she went on to perform at the Metropolitan Opera and major venues in Paris and Vienna. When she eventually returned home, then-General Director David Starkey invited her to serve as the company’s artistic ambassador.
“And he said, Angela, I want you to come on and be the artistic cultural ambassador of the Indianapolis Opera,” she recalls. “And I was like, well, what does that mean?”
The answer: she would serve as the public face of the Indianapolis Opera, helping to draw talent from diverse ethnic backgrounds to the organization. Beyond that, she functions as its educational ambassador, giving master classes to resident artists and working closely with young singers.
Her own trajectory — from the chorus to principal roles including Aida, Tosca, and Ariadne — makes her a living example of what is possible. Having performed on the world’s great stages, she brings that experience back to Indianapolis and shares it with the next generation.
“Angela is all Indianapolis,” says Starkey. As an African American opera artist and a native of the city, she sends the message that anyone can do this — that people from any background, any neighborhood, can find a place in this art form.
Both the Indianapolis Opera and Brown’s own organization, Morning Brown, share a common mission: embracing all cultures and creating opportunities for deserving musicians who might otherwise never reach a major stage. The work is about meeting communities where they are and making people — especially young people who have never encountered opera — feel welcome.
Starkey, who has given himself fully to championing the vocal arts, is equally passionate about dispelling a persistent myth.
“Opera is not a dying art form,” he says. “It’s actually a growing art form. It’s just not in the pop culture arena.”
He points out that successful films and television have long drawn on operatic influences, and that pop culture remains deeply indebted to classical traditions. Opera, he argues, has been part of every generation and every culture — making it a true world art form.
People remember their first opera, Starkey says, because unlike most art forms, opera engages every sense simultaneously: dance, instruments, singing, pageantry, costumes, and light all converge to create something singular.
The Indianapolis Opera has been an artistically led organization from the start. It grew from a circle of experienced singers and teachers in the Indianapolis area, but as Starkey notes, sustaining an organization requires more than artists. “It takes civic leaders, business leaders, philanthropists to be the backbone. So, you’ve got to have both, and this company still represents that at the highest level.”
The company’s origins trace to early 1975, when voice teacher Miriam Raymaker — then at what is now the University of Indianapolis — assembled singers and teachers for an experimental production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. It was well received. A second production followed, and the Indiana Opera Society was formally launched. At the time, no other opera company existed in the state; only a part-time festival, Whitewater Opera in the Richmond area, offered any comparison.
That early company produced two one-act operas, including an American 20th-century work featuring an African American soprano as its lead — a mixed cultural casting rare in the history of Midwestern opera. But the organization struggled almost immediately until civic and business leaders became involved, shifting its trajectory.
The arrival of opera specialist Robert Driver in 1980 proved transformative. He gave the company its real operational shape, and it began mounting productions at Clowes Hall on the campus of Butler University. Over the next three decades, it developed into a training ground for young singers — including Angela Brown.
A major milestone came in 2020 when Indianapolis Opera purchased the Basile Opera Centre permanently. The acquisition consolidated the company’s administration, artistic practices, education programs, rehearsal space, and production assets under one roof — creating both financial efficiencies and a true institutional home.
“It gave us the permission to say: this is our centre, but we need to go out to all of the communities now, not just the north side,” Starkey says. Basile is the anchor. From there, the company moves outward in every direction.
For Brown, the future of opera is secure. “Opera is in good hands,” she says. “Opera will continue to find its way in this new age. It will morph, and these young people are ready — they will bring us old heads into the future. The old-world techniques and the new ways that voice science is developing can meld together. In some aspects, they become the same.”
She points to her student Deja Watts — a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera competition — as an example of that promise: a singer with innate talent and a hunger for the craft who embodies the music rather than simply performing it.
As for Brown herself, the 50th anniversary gala was a moment of quiet astonishment. So absorbed in the work she loves, she had barely noticed the years accumulating since she first appeared in the chorus in 1983. What moved her was the chance to reconnect with others who had remained part of the organization — people who, like her, had kept operatic careers alive in one form or another.
“Opera lives,” she says. “And I want to be a part of that living legacy for Indianapolis Opera.” Her mission is to remain a force of change — one that keeps the city’s young people and older residents alike seeing themselves as part of this art form.
Starkey’s vision for the next decade is equally ambitious. With a rebuilt financial portfolio, a permanent home, and the capacity to reach all five corners of the city and state, he believes the company will keep getting better — season by season, day by day.
“The Indianapolis Symphony is the champion of the instrumental arts,” he says. “And the Indianapolis Opera is the champion of the vocal arts.”
Photo Credit: Tom Mueller
