Has Scott Joplin’s ‘Thoroughly American Opera’ Found Its Moment?
“Treemonisha” — brilliant, flawed and unfinished — is ripe for creative reimagining at a time when opera houses are looking to diversify...
- Story and libretto adapted by Leah-Simone Bowen
- Orchestrated and arranged by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth
- Director Weyni Mengesha
In 1911, legendary ragtime composer Scott Joplin created an opera unlike anything that had come before. Treemonisha is one of the few surviving live performance pieces about the immediate post-slavery era written by a Black person who actually lived through it. In it, Joplin created a young female protagonist who is elected by her 1880s community as their leader – long before women, let alone Black women, were able to vote anywhere in North America. This was truly a new kind of opera, and Joplin never saw it produced.
Volcano Theatre, in association with the Moveable Beast Collective, is reinventing Treemonisha by commissioning a new orchestration and arrangement, and, significantly, an entirely new libretto that uses Joplin’s characters and 1880s setting, but grafts onto them a new story – one that extends and updates Joplin’s feminism and politics. The re-imagining of this project looks to deepen the work's impact and restore Joplin’s voice to its rightful place as central to a North American Black Classical canon.
The production has assembled an international creative team that is not only first-rate, but mirrors the story itself, with most of the key creative leadership roles (librettist, arranger, stage director, research and text dramaturge, costume designer), as well as the entire orchestra, occupied by Black women.
Company
Volcano is an international award-winning theatre company based in Toronto. The company works experimentally, collaboratively, and with an eye to making art that is socially and politically current. Volcano’s collaborative teams work across boundaries of all kinds in this pursuit: geographic, cultural, and formal. Artists are given the time they need to make theatrical work that is as good as it can be, often through years-long development trajectories.
As a result, Volcano projects often play for multiple seasons through remounts and touring, and have been recognized by over 70 awards and nominations at the local, national and / or international level. As founding Artistic Director Ross Manson says, “Volcano brings together the best possible people to tell the most relevant stories we can find – stories that deal with race, politics, history – all the ingredients that make our time and place what it is.” Volcano is a live-performance company that strives to connect Canada to itself, and to the world.
Touring inquiries: Dani Fecko (dani@fascinatormanagement.ca)
Creative team
- Story and libretto adapted by Leah-Simone Bowen
- Co-librettist Cheryl L. Davis
- Orchestrated and arranged by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth
- Director Weyni Mengesha
- Conductor Kalena Bovell
- Choreographer Esie Mensah
- Set design Camellia Koo
- Costumes Marci Rodgers
- Lighting Kimberly Purtell
- Dramaturge Deanna Downes
National Creation Fund investment
The National Creation Fund’s investment of $240,000 allowed Volcano Theatre to bring together a large number of artists from across North America, including 16 singers and an orchestra of nine musicians, for a final development phase that included a full-scale workshop with the entire creative team.
Credits
A Volcano Theatre production in association with the Moveable Beast Collective.
Co-commissioned by Apollo Theater (Harlem), BAM (the Brooklyn Academy of Music), the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Luminato, Minnesota Opera, the National Arts Centre, Southbank Centre, Stanford Live with the assistance of the Hewlett Foundation, TO Live, and Washington Performing Arts.
Past performances
| Presented by Luminato and TO Live | Jun 6 - Jun 17, 2023 | Bluma Appel Theatre (Toronto) |
Articles & reviews
Ravishingly reborn, Scott Joplin’s ‘Treemonisha’ triumphs at the Luminato Festival
Featuring a new libretto and a winning cast, this extraordinary production makes the case for the King of Ragtime’s long-forgotten opera.
The reinvention of 1911 opera Treemonisha
A powerful collaboration is the driving force behind bringing new life to Treemonisha, Scott Joplin's groundbreaking 1911 opera. Filmmaker:
It was the first all-African American opera. And now, Treemonisha is getting new life
In 1911, ragtime composer Scott Joplin wrote the opera Treemonisha. It was one of two operas he wrote during his lifetime, and it was import
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Noteworthy opera productions include the first fully staged professional production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha in Canadian history.
