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IN THE PRESS

A New Orleans-born Black Composer's Opera Finally Comes to Life More Than 130 Years Later

By 1887, New Orleans-born violinist Edmond Dédé was an established composer and conductor living in Bordeaux, France, with 100 works already to his name, many of them popular. But he also had been working on an opera.

“Morgiane, ou, Le Sultan d’Ispahan” was an important work to Dédé, who was born a free Creole of color in 1827. The opera, though, was never staged during his life and had been lost to time for 130 years. That is until Givonna Joseph, the co-founder and artistic director of New Orleans’ OperaCreole, learned about the work.

Joseph has been on a mission the last few years to bring “Morgiane” to the stage, and the work will finally be performed for audiences at a series of events, starting with a concert Friday, Jan. 24, at St. Louis Cathedral.

“It means everything” to present “Morgiane,” says Joseph, who started OperaCreole in 2011 with her daughter Aria Mason. “My daughter always said what we were doing was restorative justice for composers of color. I’m hoping this will also be transformational justice in that people will hear this work and will want to present it all over the country. It is worthy to become part of what we call the opera canon.”

OperaCreole has partnered with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Washington, D.C.-based Opera Lafayette and the Historic New Orleans Collection for the Jan. 24 performance. The free concert will be a 90-minute excerpted production conducted by Opera Lafayette’s Patrick Dupre Quigley, a New Orleans native, and featuring 16 OperaCreole members along with lead performers Chauncey Packer, Jonathan Woody, Taylor J. White, Kenneth Kellogg, Mary Elizabeth Williams and Joshua Conyers.

The performance of "Morgiane" is this year's Musical Louisiana concert, an annual event by the Historic New Orleans Collection and the LPO. There will be a free pre-concert talk at 5 p.m. at the Williams Research Center on Chartres Street with Joseph, Quigley, Dédé biographer Sally McKee and musicologist Candace Bailey. Historian Jari C. Honora will moderate.

Following the New Orleans performance, OperaCreole and Opera Lafayette will present “Morgiane” in full at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and at the University of Maryland. Joseph hopes in the future to give Dédé his due by ultimately presenting “Morgiane” in full at the Mahalia Jackson Theater.

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