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I received my CD of "Morgiane"  and it's a really nice package.  The liner notes talk about recovering the opera and putting together the performances that were recorded.  It's also noted that the opera was never performed or even "workshopped" in its day. 

I know I complained before about not being able to listen to the performance straight through on Spotify, but I actually haven't even done that since I've had the CD.  I listened to some on the way to work and I listened to parts as I was getting ready for bed, so I have still haven't really heard it all in order yet. I have heard the whole thing, though!  There are some really lovely moments,  like an aria for the Morgiane character where her lines are sort of commented on by a solo French Horn.  It's almost like a duet.  Very delightful.  Each person would probably have a different little moment that stood out for him or her.  What does come across on the recording is the enthusiasm of the audience.  I remember the atmosphere at the performance and everyone sounds as excited as I remember. It's a fond memory for me and the recording brings a lot of that back. I am wondering if it's a case of "you had to be there" or if the excitement in the concert hall will come across for everybody.  As I mentioned,  it's a very clear sounding recording, with no cell phone sounds or coughs that I could hear.  Probably the next step would be for a staged performance. 

It looks like the recording has been released.

https://operalafayette.org/morgiane-album/

I have tried listening on Spotify,  but I don't have the premium service and commercials come up every couple tracks, which would be fine except that Spotify keeps sending me to a different part of the opera after the commercials!

I ordered a physical copy, so I hope to be able to listen all the way through soon.  At any rate,  what I've heard so far has been really lovely.  The recording quality is better than I was getting in the videos and more balanced than I was getting at the performance where this was recorded. I think I prefer a fuller orchestral sound, but I know that Opera Lafayette are sticklers for period performance, so I am sure they are giving us exactly what's in the score.  The voices came out really nice and clear in the recording. I think it will be a good listen all the way through.

One day only streaming of the above-mentioned performance!

https://theclarice.umd.edu/clarice-presents/digital-clarice/edmond-dedes-morgiane-coming-oct-25?utm_campaign=1221217_FY26%20PA%20%E2%80%A2%20Digital%20Clarice%20Promo%20Email%20Oct%202025&utm_medium=email&utm_source=dotdigital&dm_i=3YIK,Q6AP,RTEK6,3514I,1

The Bard festival always does such a good job with these operas. Did anybody go see the premiere?  I have also booked both livestreams since I can't make it up there this year.  DK is probably right that the performance will eventually end up on the YouTube page, but it is kind of fun to see it in real time.  It seems like I am always trying to sneak a peek at the livestreams during family vacations, which invariably coincide with the Bard festival opera!

Yes, you are right.  I read that "Le sultan d'Ispahan" was the original title and then when the focus moved to Morgiane, the title of the opera was changed.  I have seen "Le sultan d'Ispahan" listed as a subtitle of "Morgiane". 

Friday's performance of Edmond Dede's "Morgiane" was a lot of fun.  There was a genuine buzz in the theater and the website said the performance was sold out.  There were empty seats near me in the balcony, but I was told there was no room in the orchestra seating on the floor.  The first surprise of the evening was that the recording of the opera was going to take place at this performance.  Please silence all cell phones!  Amazingly, I didn't hear any ringers going off during the performance,  although there were the coughs and sneezes you might expect during cold and flu season.  I guess we'll see how they deal with those when we hear the recording!

The program notes talked about how, in the mid-1800s in France, there were certain rules (the program used the words "strict regulations") that operas had to follow in order to get staged.  By the late 1800s, when Bizet's "Carmen" and Dede's "Morgiane" were written, there apparently was legislation deregulating the rules and operas were starting to stray from the established norms.  For me,  Acts 1 and 2 of "Morgiane" were more "by the book" and seemed to mostly stick to the formula of the type of things we've all heard before. 

During the first two acts, I could not always hear the voices over the orchestra.  Those acts were set at a wedding feast and at a bustling market, so there was more going on in the music at the time.  It's hard to know if the singers were not always audible because of the orchestration, the balance by conducter Patrick Dupre Quigley or the projection of the singers.

I felt that Acts 3 and 4 were more interesting musically and didn't necessarily adhere to the French operatic conventions of the day.  The beginning of Act 3 started with a beguiling oboe solo and then the oboe was joined by another instrument which I could not immediately identify.   I finally decided it was a clarinet, but the two instruments meshed so well it was like a third sound had been created.  The passage went on for a while with just the two instruments and it was really lovely and unexpected. 

When the sultan, sung by bass Kenneth Kellogg, started his attempted seduction of Amine, his aria was supported by just winds and no strings. It was an unusual choice I thought, but it sounded great.  Kellogg's voice came through loud and clear and all of the voices were better heard in the last two acts.  Again, hard to tell exactly why you could hear things better in the last two acts, but probably a combination of the same factors as in the previous acts.  The orchestration was definitely more sparse in the attempted seduction and prison scenes. At the end of the opera, things swung back to the "by the book" style and Dede pulled out all the stops for the big finale.

Amine was sung by Nicole Cabell, whom the program noted was the winner of the 2005 BBC Singer of the World competition.   Cabell's Amine did a good job standing up to the sultan and she had some really lovely moments. 

Top honors,  however,  go to Mary Elizabeth Williams, who played Amine's mother, the title character Morgiane.  Williams was very animated and engaged for the whole performance and her arias really allowed her to show her range and emotional investment.  Even when she wasn't singing,  she was still visibly engaged.  When Cabell was singing, Williams would cock her head and look adoringly at her "daughter".  It was so sweet. Williams received the loudest ovation at the end of the opera and she deserved it.  It was an affecting performance. 

I enjoyed the contributions from the chorus, whose presence definitely would have been part of the earlier mandates.

I had read that the orchestra was going to be using "period" instruments and I did see some instruments that I had never seen before:  the ophicleide and four horn players playing natural horn.  There were also cellos with no endpins!

I did not pick up on the influence of "cafe-concerts" or the reference to Mozart's "Le nozze de Figaro" (as mentioned in the program), but I guess they were there!

All in all, an evening well spent.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and not too many people left at intermission.  It will be interesting to see if this opera has "legs" and could have a life beyond these initial performances. I think it's possible.   It seems like there's enough material that would sound familiar to audiences along with a few new (for the time!) wrinkles that could catch people's ears.  In any event, I would say it was an auspicious debut 130 years after the fact and some belated affirmation for Mr. Dede.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, there are links to The Washington Post and New York Times articles that I mentioned as well as links to pieces from NPR and CNN.  There's also a video with some excerpts from the New Orleans performance.

https://operalafayette.org/

If you've got an hour, here's a discussion of the context of the opera from the directors of Opera Lafayette and Opera Creole.  At the end, they mention that the opera will be recorded.

https://youtu.be/M4Mwkh60YF8?si=TAegUFbip6tDqOE7

Here's a review of the performance earlier this week. The reviewer seemed really impressed by the music as well as the enthusiasm of the crowd in the packed(!) theater.

https://parterre.com/2025/02/05/and-her-mother-too/

I am trying to keep my expectations in check.  I am not really a comic opera fan, although Opera Lafayette did a good job with Felicien David's "Lallah Roukh" when I saw it in 2013 (and which was also recorded).

I have a ticket for the Friday performance as well as for the Friday livestream, so hopefully I can catch some or all of the performance between the two options.  I have read articles on the opera in The New York Times and The Washington Post, so I am getting caught up in the hype to a certain extent. We'll see how it goes!

It is funny to call it the most important opera you've never heard.  I guess it's supposed to be a little bit tongue in cheek, but you could say that about any opera you've never heard!

Concert performance tomorrow at Lincoln Theater in DC and another at University of Maryland on Friday.
The Friday performance is pay what you wish.  The Friday performance will also be livestreamed.  It's free,but you have to sign up for it.  All the information is in the following link.

https://operalafayette.org/restore

Edmond Dédé's  Morgiane (1887)
The most important opera never heard.
The first complete opera by a Black American has been hidden in a single, handwritten manuscript for over 130 years. Experience the world-premiere concert performance of this four-act French grand opera on themes from
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

This project is a collaboration undertaken by the two foremost companies in the United States with respective expertise in historical Black and French opera: OperaCréole and Opera Lafayette.

DC AREA PREMIERES

FEBRUARY 3, 2025, 7:00p.m.
PURCHASE SINGLE TICKETS
Lincoln Theatre
Washington, D.C.
Pre-Show Discussion 6:00p.m. led by Givonna Joseph

FEBRUARY 7, 2025, 7:00p.m.
PURCHASE SINGLE TICKETS
Dekelboum Concert Hall at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Presented by the School of Music and Clarice Presents
University of Maryland, College Park
Single tickets available only. Not included in subscription.
Presented in partnership with the
University of Maryland's School of Music and The Clarice
Pre-Show Discussion 6:00p.m. led by Givonna Joseph

I signed up for the livestream and I was able to catch only bits and pieces of the performance as my family and I were on vacation at the time.  What I was able to see/hear matched the reports of very fine singing.  The staging was kind of mimimal and forlorn from what I could tell, but maybe it looked better in the theater (it's always better in the theater).  Things did get very colorful at the end, so maybe the parts I missed were also a little more dynamic visually.  I certainly miss seeing Bard performances in person, but the livestream is the next best thing. The singers did look/sound pretty intense, so I wish I could have seen the whole performance. It seems like a lot of past Bard Summerscape operas end up on the Fisher Center website and YouTube channel, so hopefully I will get another chance to see it at a later date.  My favorite part was when I was trying to catch the overture while my son was learning to milk a cow at a petting zoo.  He was enjoying himself ("I could milk that cow all day!", he exclaimed) and went back for a second try and that's when I was able to sneak my first peek at the opera.  I caught some more later in the taxi on the ride home and my son watched a little bit with me.  He thought it was alright.  One of these days, I'll take him to Bard to see the opera in person.  He's seen opera performances before, but I think the Bard experience is its own thing.

I'd like to thank Hurwitz for correcting my pronunciation of Gernsheim.

I got to hear some snippets of the broadcast today.  Everything I heard sounded great!

There's an Edward MacDowell exhibit this week at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.  It's part of the free "NextNOW" festival, which is described as "a signature event in University of Maryland's Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time."  Inside the Clarice Smith Center, there is a performing arts library called the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library and the MacDowell exhibit is housed within a gallery that connects the library to the larger building.  The information on the NextNOW website is a little confusing as it seems to indicate that the exhibit is only available at 5:00 p.m. on Friday and 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.  That seemed a little odd to me, so I called over there and I was told that the exhibit is open whenever the library is open.  The library's hours are listed as being 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday.  The library website lists Saturday, September 10th as a day the library is closed; however, the NextNOW festival is still going on Saturday, so one would think the exhibit would still be available then.

Here's the official blurb:

The current exhibit at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library features Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), who was one of the first seven people to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and known as the first internationally recognized American composer. The artists' residency and workshop in New Hampshire (known now as MacDowell) is named after him. The exhibit showcases the life and works of this pianist and composer with scores, letters, and photographs from the Special Collections in Performing Arts (an archive housed in MSPAL).

Venue:

Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library

Since I live nearby, I stopped by over the weekend to see it and, frankly, there's not much there.  Unless you live nearby, I wouldn't recommend a trip to see it. 

Here's what I saw:

7 placards:
1. Edward MacDowell: An American Composer's Legacy
2. Compositional Process
3. MacDowell and Music Publishing
4. Marian, Edward and Peterborough, New Hampshire
5. Piano Compositions
6. Early Recorded Piano Music
7. Margery Lowens and Collecting on MacDowell


5 display cases:
- 1 case was about the MacDowell colony
- 1 case was about Ann McMillan, who spent several months at the MacDowell colony in 1970/1971
- 1 case had some old 78 records and published sheet music
- 1 case included a string quartet sketch, a piano sketch, a note from his wife explaining his health situation to his publisher and some pages showing the composer experimenting with text setting
- 1 case included a draft of a concert program, photographs and letters to fans

1 tablet with 5 selections:
1. Gong Song by Ann McMillan
2. Hexentanz
3. Piano Concerto No.2 (first movement)
4. Sonata Tragica
5. To a Wild Rose

All the exhibits in the display cases came from the Dr. Margery Morgan Lowens collection on Edward McDowell, which is housed there at the library.

Here's an hour-long documentary on the 1994 Bonn production of "Il Guarany" with Domingo:

https://www.operaonvideo.com/placido-domingos-tales-from-the-opera-4-forest-fever-il-guarany-bonn-1994/

Just an update that I gave the CD of Gernsheim symphonies to my brother.  He has pretty wide open listening habits, so we'll see what he thinks.  He had never heard of Gernsheim, so maybe it's better he got the CD instead of someone who's already familiar with the composer.