Word: treemonisha
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...wait. It is opera, or can be. Back in 1911, Scott Joplin, the self-styled King of Ragtime, composed an opera called Treemonisha. It was one of the few early attempts at an opera by an American black composer, and it drew intriguingly on the musical comedy styles of the day, including ragtime. Neither distinction was enough to get it produced. For 60 years the work gathered dust on library shelves. Last week, at Atlanta's Memorial Arts Center, Treemonisha finally made it to the stage. It turned out to be of far more than historical interest. Despite...
...Atlanta, Director Katherine Dunham treated Treemonisha as the period piece it is but did little more than use it as a frame for big dance scenes. These had a scalp-tingling power. The gorgeous A Real Slow Drag ended the opera with a ceremonious eroticism that nearly matched Joplin's music. Alpha Floyd, in the title role of a foundling whose book learning propels her into civic leadership, produced a bright, reedy soprano but had stiff presence. Simon Estes, as Treemonisha's father Ned, draped Joplin's curvaceous melodies in rolling voluminous sound. But with surprisingly lackluster...
Still, it was a far cry from the only hearing that Treemonisha received during Joplin's lifetime-a run-through in a Harlem rehearsal hall. The black listeners in the hall did not like it. Ragtime Scholar Rudi Blesh speculates that they "were sophisticated enough to reject their folk past, but not sufficiently to relish a return to it in art." The composer was forced to publish the work at his own expense...
...even six serious etudes to help "amateur players" learn how to keep that steady beat with the left hand while syncopating off the beat with the right. His biggest ambition was to compose a ragtime opera. Before he died in 1917, he had written two (A Guest of Honor, Treemonisha) and a folk ballet. Each had one public performance...