#treemonisha

[sofiavideirap]

TREEMONISHA, BY SCOTT JOPLIN

COSTUME DESIGN FOR OPERA ADAPTATION.

Costume for Treemonisha, designed and made by Sofia Videira Pinto. Cotton and satin. The costume is hand-painted, quilted, and through the use of hidden magnets, it changes in three acts, every time revealing more colour.  Figurino para Treemonisha, desenhado e confecionado por Sofia Videira Pinto. Cetim e algodão. O figurino é pintado à mão, acolchoado e, através do uso de ímanes, muda em três atos, sempre revelando um pouco mais de cor.

EN

Costume project for my adaptation of the 1911 opera Treemonisha.

Originally taking place in rural postbellum Arkansas, in the 1880s, a clever African-American young woman, called Treemonisha, is elected the leader of her community of sharecroppers, after showing how superstition is the enemy of progress and knowledge and education constitute the brighter way forward.

My adaptation, though, places Treemonisha in a different time and setting: in the Auto City of Detroit, during the late 1920s, after the Great Migration that led farmer communities of the south finding their way north. Treemonisha is inspired by the first African-American female pilot, Bessie Coleman, and she is herself a pioneer and a pilot. Her family and friends are mechanics and factory workers, and the dark aura of superstition is perpetuated by Zodzetrick, a vicious sorcerer. Soon enough though, Treemonisha will prove the values of an open and innovative mind to her peers, and bring music, life and colour to the ones around her.

The concept behind the costumes is the one of emerging colours through the darkness. Starting mainly black, the costumes open panels each new act, that reveal bright and lively hues. By the end of the opera, the costumes evoke a victorious festival of colour. The garments and panels are hand painted and quilted, as an homage to the African-American tradition of quilting, which played an important role in the freedom and emancipation of former slaves. The sleeves and back of the jacket, as well as the trousers, resemble the shape of an aeroplane and wings, honouring both Bessie Coleman and Treemonisha as pioneers and messengers of hope; the front of the jacket resembles a book, an ode to the importance of education within the communities.

PT

Projeto de figurinos para uma adaptação própria da ópera Treemonisha, de 1911.

Originalmente a peça toma lugar numa aldeia rural de Arkansas, após a guerra civil americana, nos anos 1880, onde uma jovem Afro-Americana corajosa e inteligente, Treemonisha, é eleita líder da sua comunidade de meeiros, depois de demonstrar como a superstição é inimiga do progresso, e a educação de todos é o caminho mais luminoso para o futuro.

Na minha adaptação, no entanto, a história desenvolve-se na cidade de Detroit (The Auto City), nos tardios anos 20, depois da Grande Migração que levou comunidades de agricultores do sul dos EUA a rumar a norte. Treemonisha é inspirada na primeira piloto Afro-Americana, Bessie Coleman, sendo ela também uma pioneira, tanto na aviação, como nos seus ideais. A sua família e amigos são, nesta adaptação, mecânicos e trabalhadores de fábricas, e a aura pesada e negra da superstição é perpetuada por Zodzetrick, um feiticeiro vicioso. No entanto, em breve, Treemonisha vai provar os valores de uma mente aberta e inovadora à sua comunidade, e trazer música e cor às suas vidas.

O conceito por trás dos figurinos tem por base as cores vivas que emergem pela escuridão. Se ao ínicio  se apresentam fundamentalmente negros, os vários figurinos vão ao longo dos atos revelando novos painéis de cores vivas e vibrantes. No final da ópera, os figurinos evocam um vitorioso festival de cor. Todas as peças e painéis foram feitos e pintados à mão, e usando técnicas de quilting (colcha), em homenagem a esta tradição Afro-Americana, que teve um papel importante na libertação e emancipação de antigos escravos. As mangas e as costas do casaco, bem como as calças, são inspiradas em formas alares e de aviões, homenageando Bessie Coleman e Treemonisha, pioneiras e mensageiras de esperança; a frente do casaco assemelha-se a um livro, numa ode à importância da educação nas comunidades.

Fotografias: Sebastião Ogando

Modelo: Belinha Zêgo

Figurinos: Sofia Videira Pinto

[halfdeadwallfly]

this post is dedicated to that one specific performance of treemonisha i saw last year that literally made me cry. bc the way that remus looked at treemonisha at the end was so pure and beautiful and i think about it very often.

[leporellian]

thesis vii. the monster stands at the threshold... of becoming.

-

jeffrey jerome cohen, “monster culture” / backstage at the magic flute at the metropolitan opera house, NY, circa 1905 / "opera house" by thomas rowlandson and auguste charles pugin / the philadelphia metropolitan opera house before and after renovation / porgy and bess in rehearsal at the met, dir. james robinson / tosca act 1 original set design by adolf hohenstein / tosca at the san fransisco opera, dir. shawna lucey / wozzeck at the opera bastille dir. william kentridge / carmen dir. juan guillermo nova at the sng maribor / kids music cafe at the sydney opera house / don giovanni dir. robert carsen at la scala / madama butterfly dir. matthew ozawa at the detroit opera / the isango ensemble's edition of treemonisha dir. mark dornford-may / m. butterfly dir. james robinson at the santa fe opera / die meistersinger von nürnberg dir. barrie bosky at the bayreuth festival / rigoletto dir. david mcvicar at the royal opera house / the view from the stage at the margravial opera house, photographed by klaus frahm

[hellocanticle]

Treemonisha Wasn’t the Only One, James P. Johnson’s Lost Operas.

Naxos 8.669041 Regular readers of this blog are doubtless aware of my “underdog” interests. Whether suppressed by fascist regime, (as in London Records “Entartete Musik” series and Chandos “ARC”ensemble recordings), or just somehow eclipsed by more “spectacular” (by which I mean, “producing a spectacle” like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring) but, as exemplified by Cedille Records’ “Avant L’ Orage”,…

[dressupjohnnyk]

Tonight I’m excited to see Scott Joplin’s opera “Treemonisha” which fuses classical music with ragtime, folk, and gospel. It’s part of Toronto’s Luminato Festival and is produced by Volcano Theatre in association with the Canadian Opera Company, Soulpepper Theatre and Moveable Beast. 🖤❤️🖤

[fafaweng]

🖤♾⚫️ ❖ Happy Black History Month Opera： ___ ❶ Follow along throughout February as we highlight operas by Black composers. First up is Champion by Terence Blanchard. This groundbreaking piece combines the disciplines of opera and jazz and depicts the life of boxer Emile Griffith. Don't miss the Met Opera debut of Champion this spring! ____ ❷ The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis tells the true story of five teenagers wrongly accused of a crime, then sentenced to years in maximum security prisons. The opera's harrowing account of these convictions, incarcerations, and eventual exonerations remains a devastatingly relevant indictment of the racial injustices in America. ___ ❸ Troubled Island by William Grant Still portrays Jean Jacques Dessalines and the corruption of his leadership in the Haitian revolution. This work was the first grand opera composed by an African American to be produced by a major company - debuting at New York City Opera in 1949. ___ ❹ Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom by Nkeiru Okoye depicts the life of the legendary Underground Railroad conductor. Based on recent Tubman biographies, the story is told in the context of Tubman’s tight-knit family of lively characters. ___ ❺ Treemonisha by Scott Joplin takes place in 1884 on a former Texas slave plantation and tells the story of Treemonisha - a young freedwoman. Joplin was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1976 for this unique "ragtime opera." ___ ❻ Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard follows Charles, a boy of "peculiar grace," as he finds his place in the world and heals from childhood trauma. The work made history in 2021 when it became the first opera by a Black composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera. ___ ❼ We close out our #BlackHistoryMonth features with X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis. Based on the life of the civil rights leader Malcolm X, this work is set to make its Met Opera debut next season - don't miss it! ___ ✦ The Metropolitan Opera ᰽ The Metropolitan Opera Guild ► [ nk.bio/metopera / metopera.org ] ___ #BlackHistoryMonth #TheMetropolitanOpera #TheMetropolitanOperaGuild #MetOpera #MetOperaGuild （在 The Metropolitan Opera Guild） https://www.instagram.com/p/CpKx6ZRvE-d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Uzee Brown, Jr. (born June 13, 1950) opera singer, composer, and librettist was born in Cowpens, South Carolina to Alline Gaffney Brown and Uzee Brown, Sr. He graduated from Morehouse College with a BA in Music, he became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He performed the role of Parson Alltalk in Treemonisha with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He moved to Austria, to study music at Kunstuniversität Graz and the Università di Siena. He was a soloist at the inauguration of President James Carter Jr.

He earned the MM in Composition from Bowling Green State University and the MM and Ph.D. in Performance from the University of Michigan.

He composed the musical prologue for School Daze. He was co-founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of Onyx Opera Atlanta.

He was elected to the Board of Trustees at Morehouse College and was nominated for the Audelco Award in Black Theater as “Outstanding Musical Director and Arranger” of the off-Broadway musical play Zion. He was the president of the National Association of Negro Musicians. He guided and completed the research of the Documentary History of the National Association of Negro Musicians by the Center for Black Music Research.

His arrangement of the Negro Spiritual, “We Shall Overcome,” was produced for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Martin Luther King Jr. tribute. His cantata, Women of the Fire, was premiered at New York’s Lincoln Center. He performed the role of Frazier in the Atlanta Opera’s production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. He performed the same role in France, Luxembourg, and Spain. At the South Carolina General Assembly, 121st Session, members of the South Carolina House of Representatives took legislative action to honor him for his outstanding lifetime accomplishments as a native of the state.

His “Triumphal March of Heritage,” a composition for organ, was performed as the postlude in 2021 at the 155th Session of the North Georgia Annual Conference of A Bell Tolls” at the United Methodist Church. It had been commissioned to celebrate the inauguration of Leroy Keith, Morehouse College’s eighth president. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Has Scott Joplin’s ‘Thoroughly American Opera’ Found Its Moment? by Zachary Woolfe

By Zachary Woolfe “Treemonisha” — brilliant, flawed and unfinished — is ripe for creative reimagining at a time when opera houses are looking to diversify the canon. Published: July 27, 2023 at 05:01AM from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/lkWGcJz via IFTTT

[4operalove]

Grace Bumbry as Monisha in Scott JOPLIN's *TREEMONISHA* on a french production.

[nebulouswinds]

just texted this to a friend but think it deserves a post here too, given this is (probably? at least for 5+ years) my last Uni Complaint Time (everything is due in 4 days and then I graduate a week after that bc I only have projects this semester)

frustration bc I'm prepping one essay comparing childish gambino's "this is america" to a song from scott joplin's "treemonisha" and am preparing another essay comparing early spiritual tradition with modern gospel tradition but what I really find interesting is the way that early spiritual and modern gospel traditions are blended with other work song traditions to produce modern sea shanty

[don-lichterman]

Scott Joplin Piano Sheet Music Book - Complete Works: 90 Compositions - Rags, Waltzes, Marches, Cakewalks, Collaborations, Songs, Opera - Includes ... TREEMONISHA, etc. (Sheet Music for Piano)

Scott Joplin Piano Sheet Music Book – Complete Works: 90 Compositions – Rags, Waltzes, Marches, Cakewalks, Collaborations, Songs, Opera – Includes … TREEMONISHA, etc. (Sheet Music for Piano)

Price: (as of – Details) Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (December 16, 2014) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 574 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1505535417 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1505535419 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.89 pounds Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 1.3 x 11 inches

[sofiavideirap]

TREEMONISHA, BY SCOTT JOPLIN.

COSTUME DESIGNS.

Costume designs for Treemonisha and the other characters, and their progression through the acts. Design development and details.

Figurinos para Treemonisha e restantes personagem, e progressão ao longo dos atos. Desenvolvimento de design e detalhes.

EN

Costume project for my adaptation of the 1911 opera Treemonisha.

Originally taking place in rural postbellum Arkansas, in the 1880s, a clever African-American young woman, called Treemonisha, is elected the leader of her community of sharecroppers, after showing how superstition is the enemy of progress and knowledge and education constitute the brighter way forward.

My adaptation, though, places Treemonisha in a different time and setting: in the Auto City of Detroit, during the late 1920s, after the Great Migration that led farmer communities of the south finding their way north. Treemonisha is inspired by the first African-American female pilot, Bessie Coleman, and she is herself a pioneer and a pilot. Her family and friends are mechanics and factory workers, and the dark aura of superstition is perpetuated by Zodzetrick, a vicious sorcerer. Soon enough though, Treemonisha will prove the values of an open and innovative mind to her peers, and bring music, life and colour to the ones around her.

The concept behind the costumes is the one of emerging colours through the darkness. Starting mainly black, the costumes open panels each new act, that reveal bright and lively hues. By the end of the opera, the costumes evoke a victorious festival of colour. The garments and panels are hand painted and quilted, as an homage to the African-American tradition of quilting, which played an important role in the freedom and emancipation of former slaves.

PT

Projeto de figurinos para uma adaptação própria da ópera Treemonisha, de 1911.

Originalmente a peça toma lugar numa aldeia rural de Arkansas, após a guerra civil americana, nos anos 1880, onde uma jovem Afro-Americana corajosa e inteligente, Treemonisha, é eleita líder da sua comunidade de meeiros, depois de demonstrar como a superstição é inimiga do progresso, e a educação de todos é o caminho mais luminoso para o futuro.

Na minha adaptação, no entanto, a história desenvolve-se na cidade de Detroit (The Auto City), nos tardios anos 20, depois da Grande Migração que levou comunidades de agricultores do sul dos EUA a rumar a norte. Treemonisha é inspirada na primeira piloto Afro-Americana, Bessie Coleman, sendo ela também uma pioneira, tanto na aviação, como nos seus ideais. A sua família e amigos são, nesta adaptação, mecânicos e trabalhadores de fábricas, e a aura pesada e negra da superstição é perpetuada por Zodzetrick, um feiticeiro vicioso. No entanto, em breve, Treemonisha vai provar os valores de uma mente aberta e inovadora à sua comunidade, e trazer música e cor às suas vidas.

O conceito por trás dos figurinos tem por base as cores vivas que emergem pela escuridão. Se ao ínicio  se apresentam fundamentalmente negros, os vários figurinos vão ao longo dos atos revelando novos painéis de cores vivas e vibrantes. No final da ópera, os figurinos evocam um vitorioso festival de cor. Todas as peças e painéis foram feitos e pintados à mão, e usando técnicas de quilting (colcha), em homenagem a esta tradição Afro-Americana, que teve um papel importante na libertação e emancipação de antigos escravos.

[lboogie1906]

Carmen Arlene Balthrop-Delaney (May 14, 1948 - September 5, 2021) soprano and arts advocate, was born in DC to John W. Balthrop, who was employed by the Department of Justice in the Printing Office, and Clementine E. Jordan Balthrop, a homemaker. She was the youngest and only girl of four children.

She heard the legendary opera singer Leontyne Price on the radio, sparking her interest in classical music. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, and received a BSM in voice performance. She earned an MSM in Voice Performance from The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America.

She won first prize in the New York Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions, one of the most prestigious competitions in opera. She played the title role in Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha with the Houston Grand Opera. Her Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1977 in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte as Pamina. She advocated for the arts when she testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee supporting President Jimmy Carter’s proposed budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. She left the hearing room with loud applause as a 15‐minute recess was called for her to sing to members of Congress and congressional staffers in the hall of the Capitol.

She began teaching applied voice at the University of Maryland School of Music. She taught movement for singers, opera repertory, and an advanced seminar in vocal pedagogy. She married Dorceal Duckens (1985). She married Patrick Delaney. She had two daughters.

She was inducted into the University of Maryland’s Hall of Fame. She was the coordinator of the voice and opera division of the School of Music at that institution. She continued performing with opera companies, including Washington Opera, Deutsche Opera of Berlin, and Opera Columbus in Ohio. She sang the principal role in African American composer Leslie Burrs’ opera Vanqui. She served as the College of Arts and Humanities’ advanced professor at the University of Maryland. She was the university’s associate director for academic affairs and undergraduate studies. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[serialcomposer]

It's easy to just label it as "a ragtime opera" but there's a lot going on in Treemonisha.

As well as actually covering quite the range of musical styles with ragtime only being used in the dance interludes, it's a very interesting look into the thoughts and ideals of Joplin himself and how they're rooted in his experiences as black man in the turn of the century US.

Big themes of education and feminism vs. ignorance.

Aspects of Joplin's own life filter in too particularly in the protagonist has received her education from a white woman much like how Joplin himself with his musical education from a white teacher. This kind of unercuts things a bit but the work as a whole is interesting to watch/listen to.

Sadly his earlier opera, "A Guest of Honour" has been lost, but it was about the events surrounding Brooker T Washington's invitation to dine in the white house in 1901.

Not enough people talk about Scott Joplin's two operas.