(
Patrick Quigley, conductor
Featuring:
Chauncey Packer, Tenor
Jonathan Woody, Baritone
Taylor J. White, Soprano
Kenneth Kellogg, Bass
Mary Elizabeth Williams, Soprano
Joshua Conyers, Baritone
Edmond Dédé- Morgiane
DURATION: Approximately 150 minutes
Pre-Concert Talk: 5 p.m., Williams Research Center–410 Chartres Street
Admission is free and open to the public (no RSVP required)
HNOC will host a preconcert panel discussion with artistic director Givonna Joseph (OperaCréole), artistic director designate Patrick Dupre Quigley (Opera Lafayette), Dédé biographer Sally McKee (University of California, Davis), and musicologist Candace Bailey (North Carolina Central University), moderated by HNOC family historian Jari C. Honora.
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served.
This year’s edition of Musical Louisiana presents the long-awaited world premiere of New Orleanian Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane (1887). This historic composition remains the earliest known surviving full-length opera written by a Black American composer. Lauded for works that transformed some of France’s most popular stages, Dédé packed a variety of musical genres into Morgiane, which has remained a hidden gem for over a century and yet to be heard—until now.
Morgiane tells a tale of vengeance, truth, and reconciliation that begins when a young couple’s wedding day is disrupted by the sultan’s desire for the bride. When the bride’s family seeks revenge, a shocking revelation comes to light, leading to a path of forgiveness.
When New Orleans’s OperaCréole cofounder Givonna Joseph learned of Dédé’s newly discovered manuscript, she made it her mission to bring his full opera to life on the stage. After more than a decade of work, her dream is now realized. This concert, produced through a dynamic partnership between the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, OperaCréole, and Opera Lafayette, marks a pivotal moment in the repatriation of New Orleans composer Edmond Dédé’s life, music, and legacy. The city’s musical and cultural powerhouses will finally unveil this previously unheard work in the composer’s hometown, in St. Louis Cathedral, where Dédé was baptized in January of 1828.
About Musical Louisiana:
Musical Louisiana: America’s Cultural Heritage is an annual free concert series co-presented by the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Founded by Alfred E. Lemmon, the longtime director of HNOC’s Williams Research Center, Musical Louisiana is intended to be both a concert for music lovers and an educational experience for students. It is broadcast on the radio and streamed live. For this17th edition of the series, HNOC and the LPO have partnered with Opera Créole, a company dedicated to bringing restorative justice to American opera by presenting compositional voices of New Orleans’s 19th-century community of free people of color.
Support
This world premiere in New Orleans is copresented by the Historic New Orleans Collection, OperaCréole, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, courtesy of the production partnership between OperaCréole and DC–based Opera Lafayette, who collaborated to produce Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane.