A Father Complex Playlist

Our collective obsession with fathers and father figures is nothing new. (See: Christianity, the Ancient Greeks, the American Revolution, Freud, Harry Chapin.) However, we may be reaching an era of peak Dad Obsession. According to Google Trends, searches for “daddy issues” reached an all-time high in December 2020 after a gradual incline since 2004. On TikTok, @dadsofhistory is “passionate about knowing if the great men of history were good dads.” Conversely, the popular podcast “You Are Good,” formerly known as “Why Are Dads,” explores the many facets of fatherhood–good, bad, and nebulous–through film. 

It’s this nebulous underbelly that’s most interesting when considering some of opera’s most famous fathers and father figures. How far off-balance is their moral center? What sort of shadow does their legacy cast across the work as a whole? What happens when we consider the composers’ and librettists’ biographies, including their own paternal relationships? For an art form that’s often criticized for being “too unrealistic,” the fathers of opera are incredibly human, their words and actions often hitting uncomfortably close to home. 

Which is exactly what this Father’s Day playlist is for. These arias, duets, and scenes—sung by and about fathers—present some of opera’s most famous patriarchs, and the real-life sons and fathers who composed them, in all their multifaceted, complicated glory.