SCOTT JOPLIN’S TreemonishA

- A Musical Reimagining -

NEW YORK TIMES: “BEST OF” LIST 2023
BROADWAY WORLD AWARD: “BEST OPERA 2023”

Story & Libretto by Leah-Simone Bowen
Co-librettist - Cheryl L. Davis 
Orchestrated and Arranged by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth

BUY TICKETS NOW TO THE US PREMIERE IN CHICAGO at the HARRIS THEATER for MUSIC and DANCE May 2, 3, 4, 2025

“This work is about the things we were told separated us, and how we internalized them. It is about the remnants of memory, trauma, love and joy, but most of all it is about Black women and their extraordinary ability to survive.”
– Leah-Simone Bowen - Artist Statement

“A sterling example of how art of the past can take on new life in a new era.”
- New York Times

“Joplin’s long-forgotten masterpiece has been ravishingly reborn for the 21st century in a triumphant production… this version of “Treemonisha” makes a strong case that it should be the definitive one… “Ambitious” seems too light an adjective to describe their work”

- Toronto Star

the new story

Our reimagined story begins with a flashback: a young mother on the run, desperate to save her newborn child from enslavement. She hides her baby in an old tree, moments before her pursuers close in. This baby girl will be found and raised by a new mother, and the future she will bring about will be revolutionary.

Her name is Treemonisha.

The music

Treemonisha is one of the few surviving classical music pieces about the immediate post-slavery era written by a Black person who actually lived through it.

With Treemonisha, Joplin was fusing classical music with the syncopations of ragtime and the folk and Gospel sounds he knew from a childhood in the deep south. This fusion was unlike anything that had come before. It was original, born in the mind of a genius from the collision of cultures, and entirely ignored by the White opera establishment.

But Scott Joplin was creating a new form, one that is still unfolding in the American music of today.

“With this adaptation of Joplin’s groundbreaking opera, Jannina Norpoth and I pay tribute to his musical inventiveness by looking at ways to integrate multiple styles from the African diaspora and European classical traditions into our arrangements…

…From our vantage point as 21st Century creators, we have the benefit of drawing from music that spurred from Joplin's invention: All forms of contemporary jazz, R&B, Motown, and popular songs. We are treating his music as the center point wherefrom the pendulum will swing. Joplin 360°.”
– Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth, orchestration and musical adaptation

THE FIRSTS

Volcano’s production of this extraordinary work combines original source material from Joplin’s tragically overlooked opera, Treemonisha (c.1911), with the artistry of major Black artists working today in Canada, the United States and the UK. Volcano’s World Premiere production debuted in June 2023 in association with The Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper and Moveable Beast
Co-Presented by Luminato Festival and TO Live. This production marked several historic milestones:

1) The first all-Black orchestra in Canadian opera history.*

2) One of the first all-Black orchestras in Canadian classical music history, and the first in Canadian opera history*

3) The first Black woman conductor in Canadian opera history: globally acclaimed Panamanian-American Kalena Bovell.*

4) Award-winning, internationally acclaimed Canadian stage director Weyni Mengesha’s first opera.

5) The first fully-staged professional production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha in Canadian history.*

6) The first time some of Canada’s most esteemed arts organizations – Luminato, TO Live, Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper and Volcano – have worked together on a single project.


*Of course, like anything relating to Black history in North America, it is difficult to know if “firsts” really are “firsts”. Canadian Black history has often been ignored, overlooked or erased rather than recorded, taught, and celebrated. So “firsts” can only ever be provisional.

THE NOT FIRSTS

“Black Opera and Black Classical music did not begin with Scott Joplin. Awareness of this music on a wide, societal scale, however, is a recent phenomenon. So is inclusion of this music in historically White concert halls and theatres. So when speaking of “firsts” in the 21st century, it’s important to ask: “Why are these firsts? What has actually been going on all these years?

Could Black Classical be considered its own genre, with its own set of distinct ingredients? That’s a question with no singular answer. But, certainly, Black musicians have been intersecting with European Classical traditions on their own terms for centuries.

If there are still “firsts” happening, the reasons for this have nothing to do with the folks who have been writing the music…

On Sept. 19, 2019, the New York Times (finally) concurred by publishing this: “That “Porgy and Bess” — written by three white men, the Gershwin brothers and DuBose Heyward — has become known as the quintessential opera of the Black American experience is a symbol of both the systemic racism found throughout the arts and the specifically slow-to-modernize nature of the operatic canon.”

BLACK OPERA

In Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, many of the musical worlds Black people occupy collide to make something thrilling and distinct. The sound is hybrid. The instruments are European and African. The audience is encouraged to embrace the music in any way they see fit! Cheer, talk back, applaud – it’s all good.

This is an opera for everyone.

As author Naomi André puts it: “Opera is an art form that has potential for being a site of critical inquiry, political activism and social change… Opera has become a space where Black people are writing themselves into history…. Unlike the audiences for the very first opera performances in seventeenth century northern Italy… the audiences I envision… are vast…”

THE INSPIRATION

In the Spring of 2012, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale presented a concert version of Scott Joplin’s 1911 opera, Treemonisha, at Koerner Hall in Toronto. Canadian soprano Neema Bickersteth was asked to sing the title role.

The Treemonisha sung that night was not Joplin’s complete opera. In the early 1900s, a Black man writing a grand opera faced impenetrable discrimination – especially when writing an opera that centred the leadership of a Black woman. Denied access to the resources needed to reach an opening night, Joplin was never to see his masterwork produced. After an early, tragic death, his original orchestral parts were lost. All that survived was his pre-production piano-vocal score, without orchestration.

And yet, this vocal score is still performed, with orchestrations by subsequent composers. Such was the case that night in 2012, at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

In the audience was the life-partner of soprano Neema Bickersteth, and the artistic director of Volcano: Ross Manson. This spark – Ross hearing Neema sing this extraordinary music – was the impetus for the two to begin a journey towards a new version.

“HOW DO WE MOVE FORWARD FROM HERE?”

“I have this idea in my mind that there’s something beyond fusion… There’s this other sound I’m going for that is a culmination, like the smashing together, of different styles and influences...”
– Jessie Montgomery, New York Times, Sept 6, 2021

The revolutionary idea espoused by Joplin’s opera is powerful to this day – that the time has come for a woman to lead. With the work in public domain, the project of reimagining this opera from a modern perspective became possible.

Neema brought her Moveable Beast collective on board to associate produce. Ross brought Volcano on board as the lead producer. Three of the first core creative artists approached by Volcano were American composer/arrangers Jessie Montgomery, and Jannina Norpoth, and Canadian playwright and broadcaster Leah-Simone Bowen.

Leah created a concept for the new version – maintaining Joplin’s characters and setting (1880s Texarkana), but rewriting the story to give more material to the women in the opera, especially the title character, Treemonisha. With this new story, Leah deeply examines both sides of the hyphen: African-American.

We find two separate and feuding communities of African Americans asking the same question after slavery “How do we move forward from here?”
– Leah-Simone Bowen, Artist Statement

From there, the team grew to include spectacular artists from across North America and the UK - all working together to bring to the stage this new take on an old story.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

This new Treemonisha was built over 7+ years of dedicated work with an international team, and opened to ecstatic roars, cheering and rave reviews in June 2023. The Toronto Star wrote: “Joplin’s long-forgotten masterpiece has been ravishingly reborn for the 21st century in a triumphant production”.

The co-commissioners that have supported the development of this extraordinary Black opera include: Amplified Opera, Toronto; The Apollo Theater, Harlem; BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music; Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; Luminato Festival, Toronto; Minnesota Opera, Minneapolis; National Arts Centre, Canada, through the National Creation Fund; Southbank Centre, London; Stanford Live, with the assistance of the Hewlett Foundation; TO Live, Toronto; and Washington Performing Arts, DC.

US PREMIERE CAST

Creative Team

ORCHESTRA

Milestones

June 6th - 17th: World Premiere of the full version (with live chorus and orchestra ) – presented: a Volcano production in association with The Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper and Moveable Beast co-Presented by Luminato Festival and TO Live

OUR PARTNERS

Volcano wishes to acknowledge and thank our co-commissioning partners:

Volcano wishes to acknowledge and thank our funders and foundation supporters:

Volcano’s New Work Development Partner is:

Volcano’s Orchestra Partner for Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha is TD:

Emerging Black Artist Training Program:

Our thanks Canadian Opera Company and Soulpepper Theatre Company who generously donated their spaces to various stages of the project; and also to the many singers and instrumentalists in New York and Toronto that have helped our Treemonisha reboot through its ongoing workshop process since 2016. 

Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, Score Workshop, 2019.
Photography by John Lauener