Grace for Treemonisha

Théâtre du Châtelet, March 31, 2010

I couldn't resist the temptation and went to see the premiere of Treemonisha, even though I had a train for Stuttgart to catch very early next morning...

Since my previous post on Treemonisha something unpleasant must have happened at the Châtelet to explain the fact that the name of the director Mark Dornford-May was dropped out from the program. Blanca Li, who was originally supposed to be in charge of choreography, ends up directing the whole show, with a help of a french artist [Roland Roure] who basically drew a few sketches that were video-projected on the stage thus providing the background images for the show. 

 Stephen Salters, Willard White, Grace Bumbry, Adina Aaron, Stanley Jackson, Jacques-Greg Belobo

Conductor Kazem Abdullah
Director Blanca Li [ + Roland Roure ]

Treemonisha Adina Aaron
Monisha Grace Bumbry
Lucy Janinah Burnett
Remus Stanley Jackson
Ned Willard White

Simon Jacques-Greg Belobo 
Parson Alltalk Krister St. Hill 
Luddud Jean-Pierre Cadignan 
A Foreman Joël Ocangha
 

Waiting for Treemonisha

Did you know that the king of ragtime, Scott Joplin, actually wrote an opera? Well, I didn't!

The Artistic Management of the Théâtre du Châtelet had a good idea to program an opera by an African-American composer -- 1 year after the US elected the first African-American president: it will be Treemonisha by Scott Joplin. The 6-shows series of this new production will be premiered on March 31.

What to expect? To get an idea about the musical content, a DG recording is always helpful.