Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American
ragtimeRagtime is an originally American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged", rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being...
composer
Scott JoplinScott Joplin was an African-American composer and pianist, born near Texarkana, Texas, into the first post-slavery generation. He achieved fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his brief career, he wrote forty-four original ragtime pieces, one...
. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin himself never referred to it as such, it is still sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera". The music of
Treemonisha includes an
overtureOverture in music is the instrumental introduction to a dramatic, choral or, occasionally, instrumental composition...
and
preludeA Prelude is something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows after it. It may also refer to:*Prelude , a musical style*Prelude , an English based folk band*The Prelude, a poem by William Wordsworth...
, along with various
recitativeRecitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
s,
chorusA choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together is called a choir or chorus...
es, small ensemble pieces, a
balletBallet is a formalized type of performance dance, which originated in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French courts, and which was further developed in England, Italy, and Russia as a concert dance form...
, and a few
ariaAn aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s .
Treemonisha was not performed in its entirety until 1972, when the piano score was rediscovered. This discovery was called a "semimiracle" by music historian Gilbert Chase, who said
Treemonisha "bestowed its creative vitality and moral message upon many thousands of delighted listeners and viewers" when it was recreated . The opera's theme is that education is the salvation of the Negro race, represented by the heroine and symbolic educator Treemonisha, who runs into trouble with a local band of magicians who eventually kidnap her . The musical accompaniment of the opera is in the romantic style that was popular in the early 20th century, and has been described as "charming and piquant and ... deeply moving", with elements of black folk songs and dances, including a kind of pre-
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
music,
spiritualSpirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
s, and a call-and-response style scene involving a congregation and preacher .
History
Treemonisha was completed in
1910-Events:*March 19 - Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 1 is premiered in Budapest*June 25 - Igor Stravinsky's ballet, The Firebird, is premiered in Paris*September 12 - Gustav Mahler's Symphony No...
, and Joplin paid for a piano-vocal score to be published in 1911. At the time of the publishing, he sent a copy of the score to the American Musician and Art Journal, and
Treemonisha received a glowing, full-page review in the June issue. The review called it an "entirely new phase of musical art and... a thoroughly American opera (style)", which fit in well with Joplin's desire to create a distinctive form of African American opera. Despite this endorsement, the opera was never fully staged during his lifetime, and its sole performance was a concert read-through with piano in 1915 at the Lincoln Theater in
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, funded by Joplin himself. One of Joplin's friends, Sam Patterson, described this performance as "thin and unconvincing, little better than a rehearsal... its special quality (would have been) lost on the typical Harlem audience (that was) sophisticated enough to reject their folk past but not sufficiently so to relish a return to it".
Aside from a concert-style performance in 1915 of the ballet from Act II,
Frolic of the Bears by the Martin-Smith Music School, the opera was forgotten until 1970, when the score was rediscovered.
The world premiere took place on January 27 1972, as a joint production of the music department of
Morehouse CollegeMorehouse College is a private, all-male, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. It is one of four remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States, and a member of the Black Ivy League....
and the
Atlanta Symphony OrchestraThe Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001....
in
Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta is the capital and most populous city in the state of Georgia, as well as the urban core of one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States....
. The performance was directed by noted African-American dancer
Katherine DunhamKatherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator and activist who was trained as an anthropologist...
and conducted by
Robert ShawRobert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship...
, one of the first major American conductors to hire both black and white singers for his
choraleA chorale was originally a hymn sung by a christian congregation. In casual modern usage, this term also includes classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
. The production was well-received by both audiences and critics.
Along with Joplin's first opera (
A Guest of HonorA Guest of Honor was the first opera created by Scott Joplin, the celebrated ragtime composer. The focus of the production was a 1901 White House dinner hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt for the civil rights leader and educator Booker T. Washington...
, 1903), the orchestration notes for
Treemonisha have been completely lost, so subsequent performances have been produced using orchestrations created by a variety of composers, including
Thomas J. AndersonThomas Jefferson "T.J." Anderson is an African American composer, conductor, orchestrator and educator. He is well-known for his orchestration of the Scott Joplin opera, Treemonisha....
,
Gunther SchullerGunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
, and most recently,
Rick Benjamin]Rick Benjamin is the founder and conductor of the world renowned Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Benjamin has an active career as a pianist and tuboist as well as an arranger.-Early Interest in Ragtime Music:...
.
Since its premiere,
Treemonisha has been performed all over the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, at venues such as the
Houston Grand OperaHouston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and Houston cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit and Edward Bing. With a current annual operating budget of $20 million, HGO has grown from a small regional company...
, the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, and on Broadway to overwhelming critical and public acclaim. In 1976, Joplin was
posthumouslyA posthumous recognition is a ceremonial award given after the recipient has died, usually in honor of an action associated with his or her death....
awarded a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
for "contributions to American music".
Opera historian Elise Kirk noted that "the opera slumbered in oblivion for more than half a century before making a triumphant Broadway debut. It was also recorded commercially in its entirety -- the earliest African American opera to achieve that distinction and the earliest to receive widespread modern recognition and performance."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-X5mE05D0Watch clip
Inspiration
Joplin's desire in writing
Treemonisha was to make it both serious, like the European
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, as well as entertaining, drawing on the ragtime idiom only in the dance episodes of the story.
There has been speculation that the inspiration for
Treemonisha may have come from Joplin's second wife, Freddie Alexander. Like the title character, Alexander was educated, well-read and known to be a proponent of
women's rightsThe term women's rights refers to freedoms and entitlements of women and girls of all ages. These rights may or may not be institutionalized, ignored or suppressed by law, local custom, and behavior in a particular society...
and African-American culture. The fact that Joplin set the work in September 1884, the month and year of Alexander's birth, has added some weight to that theory.
Joplin biographer Edward A. Berlin, has stated that
Treemonisha may have mirrored details from Joplin's own life, writing that the opera was "a tribute to the woman he loved, a woman other biographers never even mentioned." Specifically, that Joplin taught himself music fundamentals on a piano in the white home where his mother worked, just as in the opera, the title character receives her education in a white woman's home.
Plot synopsis
Treemonisha takes place in September 1884 on a plantation between Texarkana and the Red River in Arkansas. Treemonisha is a young, educated black woman who refuses to accept the superstitions of the community. When the local conjurers try to sell Treemonisha's adoptive mother a "bag of luck", she denounces the conjurers, who retaliate by kidnapping her, and attempt to throw her into a wasp nest. Her beau, Remus, rescues her at the last moment and they return to the community. Accepted by her peers, she leads a campaign to educate the people around her.
Characters
- Andy, friend of Treemonisha
- Cephus, a conjurer
- Lucy, friend of Treemonisha
- Luddud, a conjurer
- Monisha, Treemonisha's supposed mother
- Ned, Treemonisha's father
- Parson Alltalk, a preacher
- Remus, friend of Treemonisha
- Simon, a conjurer
- Treemonisha, a young, educated freed slave
- Zodzetrick, a conjurer
Original cast
1972 Atlanta World Premiere
- Alpha Floyd (Treemonisha)
- Louise Parker (Monisha)
- Seth McCoy (Remus)
- Simon Estes
Simon Estes is an operatic bass-baritone of African-American descent who had a major international opera career since the 1960s...
(Ned)
Houston Grand Opera
In 1982, the
Houston Grand OperaHouston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and Houston cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit and Edward Bing. With a current annual operating budget of $20 million, HGO has grown from a small regional company...
produced a video of the production by
Frank CorsaroFrank Corsaro is one of America's foremost stage directors of opera and theatre. His Broadway productions include The Night of the Iguana ....
, directed for television by
Sidney SmithSidney Smith may refer to:*Sir William Sidney Smith , British admiral, always known as Sir Sidney Smith*Sidney Smith , lawyer and politician in Upper Canada*Sidney Irving Smith , American zoologist...
. This used the Schuller orchestration and starred Carmen Balthrop as Treemonisha,
Delores IvoryDelores Ivory Davis, mezzo soprano, is a graduate of Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Michigan. She received her B.S. in Music Education from Wayne State University. She was born on January 3, 1939 to Henry Ivory and Willa Mae Frazier Ivory, both musicians.- Biography :Ms...
as Monisha, and
Obba BabatundeObba Babatundé is an American actor of stage and screen, known for his Emmy-nominated performance in the television movie Miss Evers' Boys, a NAACP Image Award-nominated performance in the TV movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and a Tony Award-nominated role for his performance as C.C...
as Zodzetrick.
Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label, now part of the Universal Music Group. It is also UMG's oldest active label.-History:...
had previously released the audio version of this production on LP's back in 1976.
Version by Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
]
In June 2003 Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered their version of Scott Joplin's opera
Treemonisha at the Stern Grove Festival, an outdoor amphitheater located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco, and the oldest festival of its kind in the United States.
Treemonisha had originally premiered in 1975 with full professional staging by the Houston Grand Opera. However Benjamin thought that the Houston staging was “too heavy, too Verdiesque” and spent five years reconstructing the opera score for a 12-piece theater pit orchestra of the kind Joplin and his peers wrote for and performed with. “We want to do it exactly as we think he would have done it in 1911 on tour,” said Benjamin. “The train would arrive at some town in Iowa, and the cast and chorus would take a buggy, or maybe walk, down to the theater with their simple properties — maybe a couple of canvas backgrounds — set it up and give this show with the local pit orchestra.” In October 2005 Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered his version of
Treemonisha on the East Coast at Wake Forest University with a 13-piece orchestra and a cast of 40. Benjamin said that Joplin never intended for the "opera" to depend on a large orchestra. "His real dream was to give everyday people the opportunity, perhaps their only one, to experience opera on their own terms in the music halls and neighborhood theaters."
Benjamin says that Joplin “understood the power of the operatic medium to deliver a message. As a black man at the time, he probably wasn't allowed to go to the opera.” Benjamin hopes his new orchestration will encourage musical groups to perform
Treemonisha “with a small orchestra, of modest needs, and still convey this wonderful message. Joplin would be beaming from some place, because his work is being performed.” “I see Treemonisha as ‘opera’ in name only,” writes Benjamin. “It is much more an amalgamation of the well-established American traditions of vaudeville, tab-show, melodrama, and minstrelsy, all held together by Joplin's marvelous music. For this, the ideal accompaniment should be provided by the regulation twelve-piece theatre orchestra of that era.”
Treemohisha on IMDb
Adaptations
A performance of three songs from Treemonisha (No. 4, 27, and 18) took place at the
Berlin University of the ArtsThe Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a German university founded in 1975 with the merger of the Berlin State School of Fine Arts and the Berlin State School of Music and the Performing Arts. Its root institutions date back to the founding of the Akademie der Künste in 1696...
on 17 June 2009. A new arrangement for singers and
brass bandA brass band is a musical group generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles which include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
(4 trumpets, 4 trombones, french horn, tuba) had been commissioned from German composer Stefan Beyer. The performance was led by Konradin Groth, Principal Trumpet at the Berlin Philharmonic from 1974 till 1998, and Michael Dixon, who previously had worked as the conductor of
Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre, the elder son of organist William Lloyd Webber and brother of the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber...
's musical
CatsCats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. It introduced the song standard "Memory."...
in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Paris from 1986 to 1989.
Further reading
- Edward A. Berlin, King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era (Hardcover, New York: Oxford University, 1994; Paperback - New York: Oxford University, 1996)
External links