Treemonisha: Collegiate Chorale Performs a Scott Joplin Rarity

He's referred to nowadays as "The King of Ragtime", composer of classic American works such as "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer", but if Scott Joplin had his way, he'd be most remembered for his rarely performed opera, Treemonisha.

Published in 1911, Treemonisha is the first known grand opera composed by a black American, but it was never fully produced until 1972, fifty-five years after Joplin's death. Though perhaps not the masterpiece the composer/librettist thought it to be, Treemonisha is nevertheless a fascinating artifact of our musical heritage. The Collegiate Chorale's March 9^th concert performance at Alice Tully Hall joyously revealed a work that combined European operetta style with vaudeville, minstrelsy and the emerging ragged rhythms of 20^th Century America.

The story begins in Arkansas during the post Civil War reconstruction. When former slaves Ned and Monisha find and abandoned baby girl left under a tree, they name her Treemonisha and adopt her as their own. When she is seven years old, Ned and Monisha hire themselves out as laborers to a well-to-do white family in exchange for giving her an education.

As the opera begins, Treemonisha, now 18 years old, sticks out in her community as an educated black woman in a disorganized south where conjurors and flim-flam artists profit off of their superstitious neighbors. Kidnapped by a pair of con men who are fearful she will hurt their business, she is soon rescued. When her neighbors want to beat her captors as punishment, Treemonisha stops them and suggests that they be lectured on the wrongness of their actions and then set free. Impressed by her call for non-violence and forgiveness, her neighbors ask her to be a leader in the community, and Treemonisha leads them all in Joplin's most infectiously stirring piece of the evening, "A Real Slow Drag."

Music director Robert Bass conducted T.J. Anderson's period orchestrations (Joplin's originals are long lost) and Roger Rees provided simple staging for the soloists with books in hand. The large chorus sounded glorious. Anita Johnson made for a charming Treemonisha with a sterling soprano sound. Marietta Simpson also made a fine impression as her mother, Monisha.  Roberet Mack, as Remus, stopped the show during Act III's lecture scene, with a soaring tenor sermon, "Wrong is Never Right." Arthur Woodly, as Ned, followed with a basso showstopper, "When Villains Ramble Far and Near."

Unlike some previous productions, the Collegiate Chorale chose to retain the "dis" and "dem" dialect that Joplin wrote into the libretto. Though some may find such characterizations offensive, it was through language that Joplin showed the difference between the educated Treemonisha and her uneducated neighbors.

Though his piano rags, waltzes and marches should be treasured forever, two major Scott Joplin works, a ragtime ballet (The Ragtime Dance, 1899) and a ragtime opera (The Guest of Honor, 1903), are apparently lost forever. His health failing from syphilis by the time Treemonisha was completed, this sweet and upbeat piece gives us the only clue of what additional beloved works could have come out of this genius' pen.