In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, in 2020, and the cultural upheavals that ensued, classical-music organizations began including more composers of color in their programs. The Philadelphia Orchestra recorded the symphonies of the early-twentieth-century Black composer Florence Price. The National Symphony did the same for the modernist George Walker. The Metropolitan Opera presented two works by Terence Blanchard. Jessie Montgomery, Carlos Simon, Huang Ruo, and other nonwhite composers benefitted from an upsurge of performances. These initiatives elicited predictable backlash from musty corners of the Internet, where it was said that D.E.I. radicals were promoting mediocrities and trashing the canon. Yet apprehensions of a classical “great replacement” proved unfounded. A 2024 report by the Institute for Composer Diversity showed that seventy-six per cent of works played at American orchestras were still by Caucasian males. Furthermore, only sixteen per cent of pieces by underrepresented composers lasted longer than twenty minutes—evidence that administrators were making token gestures of inclusion while saving the prime spots for the usual suspects.
Those who scowled at such modest steps in programming are presumably hailing the Trump regime’s ugly crusade against D.E.I., which has broadened into an assault on decades of civil-rights progress. President Donald Trump has crowned himself the chairman of the Kennedy Center and complained about its “wokey” events. As a result, Renée Fleming, Ben Folds, Issa Rae, and others have cut ties with the center. The remainder of the classical world appears, at first glance, relatively unaffected. But, as 2025-26 seasons are announced in the coming weeks, subscribers might look to see whether progressive programming is being quietly rolled back. Will opera companies become nervous about politically pointed works? Will Trump-friendly artists get a boost? Will formerly disgraced Russian performers return to American halls? Will solidarity with Ukrainians dissipate?
Because orchestras, opera houses, and festivals rely almost entirely on private funding, they ought to be in a position to resist Trump’s stabs at Stalinist control. The question, though, is whether even the slightest hint of trouble—a commission for a transgender composer that annoys a reactionary board member, a Latino-oriented series that receives closely monitored N.E.A. funding—will trigger what Timothy Snyder calls anticipatory obedience. In more than a few cases, organizations seemingly launched diversity programs not out of a committed belief but out of a fear of being chastised on social media. Now fear could push them in the opposite direction. This dire moment in American history is forcing a test of character. As Thomas Mann said, in another fraught period, there is no escaping politics in the arts.
A couple of weeks after the Inauguration, I attended a concert performance of Edmond Dédé’s opera “Morgiane” at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, at the University of Maryland, just outside Washington. Dédé was a Black composer born in 1827 in New Orleans. In 1855, he immigrated to France, where he made his way as a composer and conductor. “Morgiane,” which he completed in 1887, was intended to be his breakthrough, but no one took it up. The score resurfaced in 2008, in the collections of Houghton Library, at Harvard. The Washington-based company Opera Lafayette and the New Orleans group OperaCréole came together to bring “Morgiane” to life; its first outing was at St. Louis Cathedral, in New Orleans, in January. “Morgiane” displays sufficient inspiration that it would have merited attention no matter who had composed it. With Dédé’s personal story in mind, the undertaking became essential.
The little that is known of Dédé is gathered in Sally McKee’s 2017 book, “The Exile’s Song,” alongside vivid evocations of the social and artistic worlds through which he moved. In New Orleans, he was shaped by a culturally flourishing Black population, with its manifold Haitian connections. He also had the advantage of growing up in what was then America’s opera capital; the genre had yet to find a stable home in New York. The Théâtre d’Orléans hosted a polished opera troupe that presented the latest French works, as well as Mozart and other classics. And, though New Orleans theatres were segregated, Black opera lovers enthusiastically filled the upper tiers. We don’t know whether Dédé attended the opera in his youth, but “Morgiane” gives the impression that he was steeped in the art form from an early age. He knows all the tricks.
Deteriorating conditions for people of color in New Orleans likely precipitated Dédé’s decision to seek his fortunes abroad. After failing to gain admittance to the Paris Conservatory—he was too old to do so—he attended classes as an auditor, studying with Fromental Halévy, the composer of “La Juive.” Dédé later moved to Bordeaux, where he first took a job conducting at the Grand-Théâtre and then supervised more popular fare at cafés-concerts, or music halls. In 1893, he briefly returned to New Orleans, where he felt ill at ease. He died in Paris in 1901. Scattered glimpses of his personality suggest a man of imposing presence and intelligence.
The libretto of “Morgiane,” by a Bordeaux journalist named Louis Brunet, tells a not especially compelling story inspired by “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” As the opera begins, a young woman named Amine is marrying Ali, while her mother, Morgiane, and her stepfather, Hassan, look on. Then Amine is kidnapped by a functionary of a Persian sultan—shades of Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio.” Ali, Morgiane, and Hassan disguise themselves as entertainers and infiltrate the Sultan’s court. Eventually, Morgiane reveals that the Sultan is, in fact, Amine’s father. The Sultan repents and sets her free. The choice to situate the action entirely in a mythical Middle East mitigates the Orientalism of the piece; there is really no Other here.
Nothing in “Morgiane” betrays the awkwardness of a first-time composer. The melodies exude charm; the harmonic design mirrors the changing moods of the plot; the climaxes are surely plotted. Gounod and Massenet are clear influences, but Mozart and Offenbach are also present. Dédé indulges in jangling percussion but avoids crude, exoticizing gestures. One allusion jumped out at me. In the prelude to the fourth act, set in the Sultan’s prison, cellos and bassoons play an upward line that resembles the lyrical second theme of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Given Beethoven’s associations with revolutionary liberation, this seems a deliberate nod.
Particularly distinctive is the orchestration, which makes heavy use of winds and brass. Dédé’s father, Basile, played clarinet in New Orleans, and that sound may have mixed with opera in his son’s ears. When Morgiane furnishes proof to the Sultan that Amine is his daughter, she sings a lullaby-like arietta in A major, and a solo horn accompanies her with sympathetic reserve, first intoning the single note E and then unfolding a winsome countermelody. Here and elsewhere, the intermingling of voices and instruments is masterly.
Mary Elizabeth Williams, a soprano with a strong lower extension, was mesmerizing in the title role, her superb diction giving emotional edge to a sometimes wooden text. Kenneth Kellogg brought an almost Wagnerian weight to the Sultan. Chauncey Packer, Joshua Conyers, Jonathan Woody, and Nicole Cabell gave persuasive accounts of the other roles. Singers from OperaCréole constituted the chorus. Patrick Dupre Quigley conducted expertly, though I wished at times for more zest and bite in the playing. Let’s hope that an opera house with lavish resources—whether in the United States or France—soon gives “Morgiane” a full staging.
The year Dédé died, Louis Armstrong was born. Givonna Joseph, the co-founder of OperaCréole, noted in a pre-performance discussion that Armstrong had adored opera. Legends of Dédé’s French career circulated in New Orleans, and the young Armstrong might have heard them. When the jazz titan echoed coloratura in his improvisations, he was not borrowing from a foreign source: opera belonged to him as it belonged to all. ♦
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