Gesa Kordes, a UA professor and violinist in the Moody School of Music, played in the premiere of the 138-year-old opera “Morgiane,” which finally debuted in early February at the Lincoln Center in Washington, D.C. The opera is thought to be the first ever written by a Black American, the composer Edmond Dédé.
The long-awaited performance of the work was managed by a collaboration between the New Oreleans-based OperaCréole and D.C.-based Opera Lafayette, of which Kordes is a member. Dédé’s “Morgiane,” considered to be his magnum opus, stretches over 500 pages of score and libretto. The full performance of the opera takes three hours and calls for a ballet troupe along with singers and instrumentalists.
Unfortunately, during Dédé’s lifetime, the piece was never able to make it to the stage.
“By rights, this piece should have been part of the canon,” Kordes said. “Quality-wise, no problem, so I think maybe a lot of it had to do with the color of the guy’s skin.”
Dédé was born a free man in New Orleans and worked as a cigar roller in an American factory. His dream, however, was in music, and he moved to Paris to escape American prejudice in pursuit of that passion, eventually finding a job as a repeater for a ballet in Bordeaux. The score for “Morgiane” lay dormant for over 100 years, eventually finding its way into the music library in Harvard before being rediscovered by musicologists in the 21st century. Despite the music being older than the automobile, audiences still connected with it in a dramatic way.
“They got the importance of this moment, and they reacted like crazy,” Kordes said. “I’ve never heard an audience scream like that at the end of a performance. I mean, we usually have enthusiastic audiences, but they brought the house down.”
The Opera Lafayette’s performances drew a crowd that Kordes said she had never seen at an opera. People from “all walks of life, all skin colors” showed up at theLincoln Center for the sold-out show, representing the sheer diversity of the theater districts in D.C. She also thought that people recognized the importance of the piece as “running a little bit counter” to the pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion in the current political environment.
“The most exciting part was that this was really good music,” Kordes said. “We didn’t expect it to be as good as it ended up being. It’s very tuneful, great instrumentation, lots of sound colors.”
Kordes also underscored how massive the undertaking was, as the Opera Lafayette had to find players of instruments like the ophicleide, which had long fallen out of fashion, as well as singers capable of achieving Dédé’s vision.
“I’m thinking he did what any good opera composer would have done, which is to write for voices that he knew, and he must have had some really good singers,” Kordes said. “The solo parts are hard and very virtuosic, with big ranges.”
The premiere of “Morgiane” opens doors for other performers and opera groups to be inspired by Dédé’s work. Indiana University has already reached out to OperaCréole and Opera Lafayette to stage a full version of the opera, and Kordes thinks that singers will be inspired by their recordings to perform songs from “Morgiane.”
“I’m very curious to see where this piece goes from here,” Kordes said. “Doesn’t matter who wrote it, why and when, but the fact that music this good can be completely forgotten is kind of shocking to me, and I really hope that this piece goes places.”
