One of the oldest surviving operas by a black American composer will be performed for the first time – 18 years after it has been written

In the early 1800s, New Orleans was a lively cultural hub. While music bubbled through the city departments, Black Orchestras performed for a black audience and tweak classic tunes tweaked in early antecedents from Jazz.

That is the area where Edmond Dédé grew up. His skill on the clarinet and violin made him “something of a sensation in the city,” according to Keith O’Brien from the New York Times.

That sensational talent brought the shockingly little fame in the world of American classical music. After he left for France, where he lived and wrote music until his death, he flourished as a composer but never realized his dream: perform his Magnum Opus from 1887, called a Grand Opera of 545 pages Morgiane. Experts think it can be the oldest existing opera written by a black American composer.

Now, almost 125 years after the death of Dédé, Morgiane will finally have his premiere. Staged by Operacréole And Opera LafayetteThe production is invoiced as the ‘the most important opera that has never been heard’.

Mon Pauvre Coeur

The story of how the only surviving copy of Morgaine Coming from an antique music store in Paris in 1999, ended up in the Harvard Music Library and finally arrived on stage at the beginning of 2025 is almost just as sweeping as the opera itself.

Born as a free person of color in 1827, Dédé had to bear proof of his freedom and struggled to find work. After a short period in Mexico City in the 1840s, he returned to New Orleans to work as a cigar roller. In the evening he sharpened his craft and write moving songs such as’Mon Pauvre Coeur“(” My poor heart “) before he was finally stopped in the United States for France in 1855 for France.

“I always say that ‘Mon Pauvre Coeur’ is the first blues number,” Givonna JosephThe founder and artistic director of Operacréole, says the Washington PostMichael Andor Brodeur is. “He wrote it as this beautiful artificial song, but sometimes I feel that he might be talking about himself. It is unanswered love. “

He found greater fame in France, although he was still forced to write opera on the side. To earn a living, he led in Bordeaux and worked in provincial theaters, produced shows that ‘often seemed more like Vaudeville than high art’, according to the Time.

“He wanted to be a composer in the art music tradition,” Sally McKeeA retired historian at the University of California in Davis tells the publication. “He wanted to be like Mendelssohn. He wanted to be like Brahms. “

He came temptingly close to that goal when he was ready Morgiane. It was a fantastic story of a young bride abducted by a bad guy Sultan, until the mother of the bride – the title character, Morgiane – assumes a shocking secret to save her abducted daughter.

But Dédé never saw it performing. A few years later he died with little money and was buried in a common grave in Paris. Few people understood – or even witness – are great work, bursting into the seams of two bound parts.

The opera disappeared and the legacy of Dédé faded in darkness.

Edmond Dede Story

Even his descendants back in New Orleans did not realize that they had “a family member with that kind of status” until one took a magazine in a tram in the 1960s and a well-known last name, as Wesley Dede said that Laine Kaplan-Levenson of WWNOs “Tripod‘In 2018. The composer was the uncle of his grandfather.

But in 1999 – almost 100 years after the death of Dédé – a French music collector sold the manuscript to the Harvard music library as part of his huge collection of scores. About a decade later, Andrea CaweltiA music catalog at Harvard was still digging through the collection when they were the Morgiane script.

“To be honest, I was happy because I made my life’s work to discover things and get them into the world,” says CaWelti de Time.

Shortly after she had digitized the manuscript, McKee published a book about the remarkable story called Dédé The song of the exile. Slowly but surely, the legacy of Dédé was new. When Joseph came across the digital manuscript around 2011, she wanted to bring it to life immediately. However, organizing a long -lost work comes with unique obstacles.

“There are many challenges, the greatest is that the composer has been dead for more than 100 years, so we cannot consult him when we have questions,” Patrick Quigleytells the conductor and incoming artistic director of Opera Lafayette WETAIs John Baarther.

Some instruments written in the score of the opera, such as the uphillare no longer used by modern orchestras. Some parts of the manuscript were almost illegible and required heavy editorial choices on the part of Quigley and Joseph, which worked together during the entire process of restoring the opera to the intended glory. Last summer the team started rehearsals in Cincinnati.

“The music is so lush and beautiful, and [there are] Some indications of New Orleans, and it might be a precursor to Jazz, “says Joseph WGNO‘s Christopher Leach.

Kenneth Kelloggwho plays the cowardly sultan, Weta says that ‘is preparing for Morgiane Is no different than preparing for Bellini or Mozart. “

He adds: “What is different is to wear and reclaim the inheritance of a black American who was denied the chance,” adds Kellogg. “It is a humble honor to ring him in the ears and hearts of today’s audience.”

After a short premiere In the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans on January 24, Morgiane Will greet at the beginning of February in Washington, DC and New York. Dédés Original manuscript will also be shown in the Folger Shakespeare Library until 2 March as part of his “Out of the safe” exhibition.

“It means a lot for me to bring him back home,” Joseph tells WGNO. “We should never allow people to put ourselves in a box. What we are forced to do, we have to do that. ‘