By Neil Armstrong
The audience at the opening night of Scott Joplin’s opera, Treemonisha, at St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on June 10 did not need any prompting — though it was encouraged in the printed programme — to embrace the music in any way they saw fit.
“Cheer, talk back, applaud because this is an opera for everyone.” That was done enthusiastically and even after the standing ovation conversations continued at the afterparty about the visceral reactions to certain scenes — the heightened moments of pathos and joy.
If you haven’t seen it yet, there are four performances left, from June 14 to 17, for you to attend “the first all-Black opera orchestra in Canadian history” and to see “the first Black woman opera conductor” weaving the different strands of the story into a whole through music.
Indeed, Treemonisha has been seven-years-in-the-making and was long awaited and well received. Produced by Volcano in association with The Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper, and Moveable Beast, it is being co-presented by TO Live and Luminato Festival Toronto.
Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha is a reimaging of an opera composed by the Black American composer in the years leading up to 1911. “In his work on the original, Joplin faced a difficult path of exclusion and discrimination as a Black composer attempting to cross over from ragtime to opera,” notes the production’s team in the programme.
“This new production uses all of Joplin’s original songs, adding one melody from outside the opera and a traditional Maroon spiritual from his era. With the exception of the final song (which retains Joplin’s lyrics), all the words are new, as is the entire orchestration. The characters and setting are the same as the original, with the exception of a name change for Zodzerick, and the invention of the Nana character. Inspired by Joplin’s testament to Black female leadership, the creative team is led by Black women. These extraordinary artists have added more material for the women characters to sing and a story that resonates with the landscape of today, in the same way the original did with the America of 1911.”
Treemonisha is one of the few pieces set soon after the abolition of slavery that is written by a survivor of that era.
“Fusing European classical music with the sounds of ragtime, folk, and gospel to creating a thrilling and distinct sound, and introducing a young woman protagonist chosen by her community to lead, Joplin’s nearly lost opera was far ahead of its time,” the notes underscore.
The reimagined Treemonisha tells “a revolutionary story of a young Black woman who, in discovering the truth of her past, and overcoming enormous personal loss, discovers her power to unify a divided people, and lead her community towards a new future.”
The juxtaposition of the Freedmen and the Maroons sets powerful moments of perceptions and conflict but also folk wisdom versus a contrived existence. In the end, it requires one person to bring both sides together; Neema Bickersteth is masterful in her performance as Treemonisha. So too are Cedric Berry as Zodzerick, a Maroon medicine man; SATE as Nana Buluku, leader of the Maroons, and Ashley Faatoalia, who plays Remus, Treemonisha’s fiancé.
In 2019, I interviewed playwright and broadcaster Leah-Simone Bowen, who reimagined the opera with a new story and libretto, about Treemonisha. She was excited then about this production that was bringing together musicians from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. On Saturday night, she beamed with a smile as she told me that they were all looking forward to that world premiere. The co-librettist is Emmy-nominated Cheryl L. Davis and it is arranged and orchestrated by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth.
Treemonisha is conducted by the first Black woman conductor in Canadian opera history, Panamanian-American Kalena Bovell, and directed by award-winning internationally acclaimed Canadian stage director Weyni Mengesha. The choreographer is Esie Mensah.
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