‘Treemonisha’ As It W as Intended To Be
By BARRYM ORE L AURENCE SCHERER auf Naxos." The recording, and Ragtime Orchestra & Singers premiered Scott Joplin is best known for his subsequent revivals of the Schuller this version semistaged in San jaunty piano rags, including "The arrangement of the score by Opera Francisco, and gave subsequent Entertainer," "Solace" (works later Theater of St. Louis in 2000 and New performances in recent years at the featured on the soundtrack to the 1973 York's Collegiate Chorale in 2006, historic Saenger Theater in Joplin's film "The Sting") and, above all, "The apparently offered the last word on what hometown of Texarkana, Texas, and at Maple Leaf Rag." But one of the most seemed to be a melodious but Cheyney University of Pennsylvania tantalizing and enigmatic portions of stylistically naive work. Until now. (America's oldest black college) among the composer's legacy was his 1910 On Dec. 6, to mark the other venues. Mr. Benjamin notes that opera, "Treemonisha." Reputedly all centenary of the Joplin piano score's he has also "allowed my edition to be that remained of "Treemonisha" at the publication, New World Records is produced by Opera Memphis and time of Joplin's death in 1917 was a releasing an entirely new recording of several other opera companies." piano-vocal score, which he had "Treemonisha" that places it into a The first thing listeners to this published at his own expense in 1911. clearer ragtime perspective. The splendid new "Treemonisha" will note In 1975, "Treemonisha" received release, featuring Metropolitan Opera is its intimacy. Instead of grandiose a full-scale production by the Houston soprano Anita Johnson in the title role, voices and opera-scale orchestrations, Grand Opera, for which the piano score includes a 118-page book and this recording features lighter voices was orchestrated by the eminent represents 18 years of research by its accompanied by the lighter orchestral American composer, conductor and conductor, Rick Benjamin. Mr. textures of authentic ragtime jazz scholar Gunther Schuller. In the Benjamin, the founder and director of instrumentation, based on the so-called liner notes to the resultant Deutsche the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, is an "Eleven and Piano" ensemble. Grammophon "original cast" recording authority and leading interpreter of Consisting of flute (also doubling as of the opera, Vera Brodsky Lawrence ragtime music. piccolo), clarinet, two cornets, (editor of Joplin's "Collected Piano Having closely studied all trombone, drums, piano, two violins, Works") wrote that "Treemonisha" available musical and historical sources viola, cello, and double bass, with one represented Joplin's intention "to write a related to the opera—including Joplin's instrument to a part, this nimble serious grand opera according to the own instrumentation jottings in his combination was the standard accepted standards of his day." Mr. personal copy of the piano score—Mr. instrumental makeup of theater, Schuller's orchestrations, tailored to fit Benjamin aimed to create a new, minstrel-show and vaudeville orchestras an operatic cast and large chorus, are historically correct performing edition of from the 1870s to the 1920s. It was also equivalent in instrumental heft to the the opera that would reflect the original the basis of early recording orchestras modernized chamber orchestra of musical character intended by Joplin. before the invention of the recording Richard Strauss's 1912 opera "Ariadne In 2003 Mr. Benjamin and the Paragon microphone.
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra: ‘Treemonisha’ As It Was Intended To Be
Mr. Benjamin contends that the 1975 "Treemonisha" was composed while operas by their composers, but which Houston revival "remodeled minstrel shows were still in fashion and contain a great deal of rock, pop and 'Treemonisha' into European-style blackface musical numbers were other non-operatic music. opera—something it decidedly is not." standard fare in vaudeville. General Mr. Benjamin also says that his Indeed, while "Treemonisha" opera audiences, accustomed to findings have also scotched the may be considered Joplin's response to African stage characters only as exotic longstanding notion that "Treemonisha" European opera, the previous large- royal heroines like the title characters of was never performed complete in scale orchestration emphasized a Verdi's "Aida" and Giacomo Joplin's lifetime. "Joplin did in fact stylistic conflict in its mixture of ragtime Meyerbeer's "L'Africaine," would have succeed in performing 'Treemonisha' for and other genres, none of them taken scant interest in a moralizing work paying audiences in Bayonne, N.J., in operatic. Although three ensemble about a rural Arkansas community of 1913." And he had himself orchestrated numbers are ragtime masterpieces— former slaves led by a school teacher. it. Mr. Benjamin's essay includes his "We're Goin' Around," "Aunt Dinah Has But it might have appealed to black account of his 1989 meeting with the Blowed De Horn" and the truly grand audiences at the time. estate attorney who had personally finale, "A Real Slow Drag"—the other And this is Mr. Benjamin's point. thrown away three cartons of numbers are composed in an idiom "Joplin's oft-stated goal," he says by "Treemonisha" manuscripts, including drawn from Gay '90s balladry, telephone, "was to produce band parts, in 1962 when Joplin was barbershop quartet and gospel song 'Treemonisha' at Harlem's Crescent and forgotten. rather than the accepted manner of Lafayette theaters—both African- "'Treemonisha,'" says Mr. Giuseppe Verdi or Giacomo Puccini. American vaudeville houses—which Benjamin, "is truly a rare artifact of a Moreover, the libretto's simple language suggests that his target audiences were vanished culture: an opera about and action are far removed from the black. African-Americans of the prevailing European dramatic style. It "Moreover, with all due respect to Reconstruction era—created by a all raises the question of what Joplin Gunther Schuller and the Houston black man who actually lived through himself meant by "opera." Grand Opera," Mr. Benjamin continues, it. As a unique work of art, it doesn't fit Joplin's own terminology may "in 1911—decades before the Civil the usual templates. It is the product of have been partly to blame for earlier Rights Movement—Scott Joplin would a great American genius, and we hope perceptions. Mr. Benjamin asserts that, never have had entrée into a major at least to help focus attention on "When he rather defensively stated in American opera company with a big what's truly wonderful about it." 1913 that '. . . the score complete is orchestra." On the contrary, "he wrote grand opera,' he was simply 'Treemonisha' specifically to offer an emphasizing that the format was that of accessible operatic form to the middle- Mr. Scherer, author of "A History of American true opera—i.e., all-sung—and not the and working-classes, who attended Classical Music" (Naxos/Sourcebooks) typical hodgepodge entertainments that vaudeville shows in neighborhood writes about music and the fine arts for the many of his contemporaries were theaters." Indeed, we can view Journal. calling 'operas' with or without irony." "Treemonisha" as the ancestor to many Historically speaking, works written today that are called