"Morgiane" (1887) by Edmond Dede

[Finn_McCool]

Concert performance tomorrow at Lincoln Theater in DC and another at University of Maryland on Friday.
The Friday performance is pay what you wish.  The Friday performance will also be livestreamed.  It's free,but you have to sign up for it.  All the information is in the following link.

https://operalafayette.org/restore

Edmond Dédé's  Morgiane (1887)
The most important opera never heard.
The first complete opera by a Black American has been hidden in a single, handwritten manuscript for over 130 years. Experience the world-premiere concert performance of this four-act French grand opera on themes from
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

This project is a collaboration undertaken by the two foremost companies in the United States with respective expertise in historical Black and French opera: OperaCréole and Opera Lafayette.

DC AREA PREMIERES

FEBRUARY 3, 2025, 7:00p.m.
PURCHASE SINGLE TICKETS
Lincoln Theatre
Washington, D.C.
Pre-Show Discussion 6:00p.m. led by Givonna Joseph

FEBRUARY 7, 2025, 7:00p.m.
PURCHASE SINGLE TICKETS
Dekelboum Concert Hall at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Presented by the School of Music and Clarice Presents
University of Maryland, College Park
Single tickets available only. Not included in subscription.
Presented in partnership with the
University of Maryland's School of Music and The Clarice
Pre-Show Discussion 6:00p.m. led by Givonna Joseph

[eschiss1]

We want a report!

[Alan Howe]

The most important opera never heard.

That's quite a claim! As Eric says, we would welcome a report!

[Ilja]

Dédé is a very interesting composer, although it's perhaps not entirely justified to frame him as "American" in that respect. By the time this opera was premiered, he'd been living and working in France for over thirty years. He studied with Halévy, and from what I've heard of his music that's the influence that is most prevalent. Take his overture to Le Sultan d'Isphahan, for instance.

[Alan Howe]

Not really very interesting, to my ears. Hackneyed, I'd say. Sorry!

[semloh]

Yes, agreed, Alan. I think it's a bit of a mess, but the audience seemed to enjoy it! 

[Finn_McCool]

I have a ticket for the Friday performance as well as for the Friday livestream, so hopefully I can catch some or all of the performance between the two options.  I have read articles on the opera in The New York Times and The Washington Post, so I am getting caught up in the hype to a certain extent. We'll see how it goes!

It is funny to call it the most important opera you've never heard.  I guess it's supposed to be a little bit tongue in cheek, but you could say that about any opera you've never heard!

[Alan Howe]

We greatly look forward to your report!

[Finn_McCool]

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, there are links to The Washington Post and New York Times articles that I mentioned as well as links to pieces from NPR and CNN.  There's also a video with some excerpts from the New Orleans performance.

https://operalafayette.org/

If you've got an hour, here's a discussion of the context of the opera from the directors of Opera Lafayette and Opera Creole.  At the end, they mention that the opera will be recorded.

https://youtu.be/M4Mwkh60YF8?si=TAegUFbip6tDqOE7

Here's a review of the performance earlier this week. The reviewer seemed really impressed by the music as well as the enthusiasm of the crowd in the packed(!) theater.

https://parterre.com/2025/02/05/and-her-mother-too/

I am trying to keep my expectations in check.  I am not really a comic opera fan, although Opera Lafayette did a good job with Felicien David's "Lallah Roukh" when I saw it in 2013 (and which was also recorded).

[Alan Howe]

Thank you very much indeed. Please continue to keep us informed.

[Finn_McCool]

Friday's performance of Edmond Dede's "Morgiane" was a lot of fun.  There was a genuine buzz in the theater and the website said the performance was sold out.  There were empty seats near me in the balcony, but I was told there was no room in the orchestra seating on the floor.  The first surprise of the evening was that the recording of the opera was going to take place at this performance.  Please silence all cell phones!  Amazingly, I didn't hear any ringers going off during the performance,  although there were the coughs and sneezes you might expect during cold and flu season.  I guess we'll see how they deal with those when we hear the recording!

The program notes talked about how, in the mid-1800s in France, there were certain rules (the program used the words "strict regulations") that operas had to follow in order to get staged.  By the late 1800s, when Bizet's "Carmen" and Dede's "Morgiane" were written, there apparently was legislation deregulating the rules and operas were starting to stray from the established norms.  For me,  Acts 1 and 2 of "Morgiane" were more "by the book" and seemed to mostly stick to the formula of the type of things we've all heard before. 

During the first two acts, I could not always hear the voices over the orchestra.  Those acts were set at a wedding feast and at a bustling market, so there was more going on in the music at the time.  It's hard to know if the singers were not always audible because of the orchestration, the balance by conducter Patrick Dupre Quigley or the projection of the singers.

I felt that Acts 3 and 4 were more interesting musically and didn't necessarily adhere to the French operatic conventions of the day.  The beginning of Act 3 started with a beguiling oboe solo and then the oboe was joined by another instrument which I could not immediately identify.   I finally decided it was a clarinet, but the two instruments meshed so well it was like a third sound had been created.  The passage went on for a while with just the two instruments and it was really lovely and unexpected. 

When the sultan, sung by bass Kenneth Kellogg, started his attempted seduction of Amine, his aria was supported by just winds and no strings. It was an unusual choice I thought, but it sounded great.  Kellogg's voice came through loud and clear and all of the voices were better heard in the last two acts.  Again, hard to tell exactly why you could hear things better in the last two acts, but probably a combination of the same factors as in the previous acts.  The orchestration was definitely more sparse in the attempted seduction and prison scenes. At the end of the opera, things swung back to the "by the book" style and Dede pulled out all the stops for the big finale.

Amine was sung by Nicole Cabell, whom the program noted was the winner of the 2005 BBC Singer of the World competition.   Cabell's Amine did a good job standing up to the sultan and she had some really lovely moments. 

Top honors,  however,  go to Mary Elizabeth Williams, who played Amine's mother, the title character Morgiane.  Williams was very animated and engaged for the whole performance and her arias really allowed her to show her range and emotional investment.  Even when she wasn't singing,  she was still visibly engaged.  When Cabell was singing, Williams would cock her head and look adoringly at her "daughter".  It was so sweet. Williams received the loudest ovation at the end of the opera and she deserved it.  It was an affecting performance. 

I enjoyed the contributions from the chorus, whose presence definitely would have been part of the earlier mandates.

I had read that the orchestra was going to be using "period" instruments and I did see some instruments that I had never seen before:  the ophicleide and four horn players playing natural horn.  There were also cellos with no endpins!

I did not pick up on the influence of "cafe-concerts" or the reference to Mozart's "Le nozze de Figaro" (as mentioned in the program), but I guess they were there!

All in all, an evening well spent.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and not too many people left at intermission.  It will be interesting to see if this opera has "legs" and could have a life beyond these initial performances. I think it's possible.   It seems like there's enough material that would sound familiar to audiences along with a few new (for the time!) wrinkles that could catch people's ears.  In any event, I would say it was an auspicious debut 130 years after the fact and some belated affirmation for Mr. Dede.

[BerlinExpat]

Take his overture to Le Sultan d'Isphahan, for instance.

It seems they are one and the same "Morgiane, ou, Le sultan d'Ispahan"!

[Finn_McCool]

Yes, you are right.  I read that "Le sultan d'Ispahan" was the original title and then when the focus moved to Morgiane, the title of the opera was changed.  I have seen "Le sultan d'Ispahan" listed as a subtitle of "Morgiane".