A Tempo host Rachel Katz checks in on two productions this week - the world premiere of the French grand opera Morgiane, composed by the 19th-century New Orleans-based composer Edmond Dédé, and McCarter Theatre's Here There are Blueberries, about the mystery behind an album of Holocaust-era photos.
A fourth-generation free person of color born in New Orleans, a major center of American opera in the mid-1800s, composer Edmond Dédé eventually left the antebellum South and settled in France. There, he wrote the four-act French grand opera Le Sultan d’Isphahan, or Morgiane. It was never performed, but, the manuscript survived and eventually made its way into Harvard University’s Houghton Library.
Now, that opera is finally being given its world premiere through a co-production of New Orleans-based OperaCréole, which performs lost or rarely performed works by composers of African descent, particularly from New Orleans, and Washington, DC-based Opera Lafayette, which specializes in early French opera. A 90-second excerpt was presented last month at the cathedral where the composer was baptized, and the full work will premiere in concert form in DC Feb. 3, followed by performances in New York and the University of Maryland.
OperaCréole co-founder and Artistic Director Givonna Joseph and Opera Lafayette Artistic Director Designate Patrick Quigley discuss Dédé and restoring his opera.
Right: The title page of Dédé's Morgiane. (Harvard University - Houghton Library)
Rachel also chats with McCarter Theatre Director of University and Artistic Partnerships Debbie Bisno about Here There Are Blueberries, which runs Feb. 1 - 8. The 2024 Pulitzer Prize Finalist follows the story of a mysterious photo album featuring Nazi-era photos that arrives at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The archivist's search to uncover the stories behind the photos raises questions about individual and community choices and complicity during the Holocaust.
