Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining
June 10th-17th, 2023
St Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Bluma Appel Theatre
Presented by Luminato and Volcano Theatre
Composer and libretto: Scott Joplin
Libretto adaptation: Leah-Simone Bowen
Co-Arranger/Orchestrator Jessie Montgomery
Co-Arranger/Orchestrator Jannina Norpoth
Stage Director Weyni Mengesha
Conductor Kalena Bovell
Choreographer Esie Mensah
Produced in association with the Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper & Moveable Beast.
“★★★ Esie Mensah’s choreography more than fills Camellia Koo’s evocative sets (with additional designs by Rachel Forbes), which covers the floor with sand and features dangling ropes twisted together to evoke the dense Arkansan forests. ”
“★★★ Has Scott Joplin’s ‘Thoroughly American Opera’ Found Its Moment?
“Treemonisha” — brilliant, flawed and unfinished — is ripe for creative reimagining at a time when opera houses are looking to diversify the canon.”
Originally composed by ragtime great Scott Joplin, Treemonisha folds in ragtime, gospel, and spiritual sounds alongside classical music. It was written over 100 years ago, partially lost, and then reimagined into something startling and relevant: the story of a young Black woman’s journey to leadership in a dangerous and fractured world.
The orchestra consists of both African and Western instruments. It is written, directed, conducted, and performed by Black artists from two continents, including acclaimed New York composers Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth, with a new story by Toronto’s own Leah-Simone Bowen (co-creator of The Secret Life of Canada), working with Emmy-nominated co-librettist Cheryl L. Davis.
The story
Our reimagined story begins with a flashback: a young mother is 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. The mother’s life is taken beside that tree, but her baby survives. She will be found hours later and raised by a new mother named Monisha. It is Monisha who names the girl after herself and the hiding place that saved her. Treemonisha.
The story picks up again on the morning of Treemonisha’s wedding day. It is 1884 on an African-American-run plantation near Texarkana, on the Texas-Arkansas border. Treemonisha’s father, Ned, has chosen a husband for her, a young man named Remus. Another young man, named Zodzerick, wishes Treemonisha well, but Ned and Remus drive him away. Zodzerick is a Maroon, part of an Afro-centric culture that Ned and Remus believe is the antithesis of all that they, as God-fearing Freedmen (Christian and American) are trying to build.
Just a short time before the wedding, Monisha tells Treemonisha of her true origin, unwittingly providing Treemonisha with evidence that her birth mother was also a Maroon. Treemonisha’s world flips upside down. If this essential truth has been hidden from her for so long, what else doesn’t she know? She realizes suddenly that she never loved Remus,and doesn’t want this marriage. Minutes before the ceremony, Treemonisha runs into the forest in search of the truth about her birth mother; in search of herself.
Treemonisha’s journey is epic, full of joy and tragedy. There is a ghost to be met, love to be felt, and violence to be endured. There is kindness and chaos. This journey will change not only Treemonisha, but her entire community, Freedman and Maroon alike. It is a journey that is still playing out in America today, and for all people who are tied to both an old and a new world. It is a quest to answer the question: who are we? And how do we bring the pieces of ourselves together, after all that has happened
Photo credit: Dahlia Katz
