Homecoming: Dédé’s Morgiane
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Preconcert talk: 5 p.m., Williams Research Center (410 Chartres Street)
Concert: 7:30 p.m., St. Louis Cathedral
Admission is free and open to the public
Admission is free and open to the public. RSVP below to receive concert reminders and email updates. Seating is first-come, first-served. Registration does not guarantee a seat.
This year’s edition of Musical Louisiana presents the long-awaited world premiere of New Orleanian Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane (1887). This historic composition remains the earliest known surviving full-length opera written by a Black American composer. Lauded for works that transformed some of France’s most popular stages, Dédé packed a variety of musical genres into Morgiane, which has remained a hidden gem for over a century and yet to be heard—until now.
Morgiane tells a tale of vengeance, truth, and reconciliation that begins when a young couple’s wedding day is disrupted by the sultan’s desire for the bride. When the bride’s family seeks revenge, a shocking revelation comes to light, leading to a path of forgiveness.
When New Orleans’s OperaCréole cofounder Givonna Joseph learned of Dédé’s newly discovered manuscript, she made it her mission to bring his full opera to life on the stage. After more than a decade of work, her dream is now realized. This concert, produced through a dynamic partnership between the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, OperaCréole, and Opera Lafayette, marks a pivotal moment in the repatriation of New Orleans composer Edmond Dédé’s life, music, and legacy. The city’s musical and cultural powerhouses will finally unveil this previously unheard work in the composer’s hometown, in St. Louis Cathedral, where Dédé was baptized in January of 1828.
This concert will feature the Grammy Award–winning Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, six acclaimed soloists—baritone Joshua Conyers, bass Kenneth Kellogg, tenor Chauncey Packer, sopranos Taylor J. White and Mary Elizabeth Williams, and bass-baritone Jonathan Woody—and OperaCréole’s principal singers and chorus under the baton of Washington, DC–based Opera Lafayette’s artistic director designate (and New Orleans native) Patrick Dupre Quigley. The production will draw selections from three acts of the opera.
“Morgiane is the most important piece of American music that no one has ever heard. . . . The American musical community has been deprived of this masterpiece for over 130 years; it is high time that Dédé and his music take their rightful place in the American musical canon.”
—Patrick Dupre Quigley, NBC Nightly News, February 2024
Morgiane will be mounted in full in Washington, DC, and New York City this February by Opera Lafayette in partnership with OperaCréole. Learn more on the OperaCréole website.
Preconcert Talk
Williams Research Center
410 Chartres Street
5 p.m.
Admission is free and open to the public (no RSVP required)
HNOC will host a preconcert panel discussion with artistic director Givonna Joseph (OperaCréole), artistic director designate Patrick Dupre Quigley (Opera Lafayette), Dédé biographer Sally McKee (University of California, Davis), and musicologist Candace Bailey (North Carolina Central University), moderated by HNOC family historian Jari C. Honora.
Header image: Edmond Dédé, between 1857 and 1893, HNOC, gift of Al Rose, 1985.254.78; original at Amistad Research Center. Detail from Morgiane, 1887, by Dédé and Louis Brunet. Houghton Library, Harvard University
Support
This world premiere in New Orleans is copresented by the Historic New Orleans Collection, OperaCréole, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, courtesy of the production partnership between OperaCréole and DC–based Opera Lafayette, who collaborated to produce Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane.
Streaming
This year's concert will be streamed live on LPOmusic.com and WLAE.com. WWNO will broadcast the program on 89.9 FM and Classical 104.9 FM in the New Orleans area and KTLN 90.5 FM in the Houma-Thibodaux area.
About Musical Louisiana
Since 2007 Musical Louisiana: America’s Cultural Heritage has been copresented by the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. It was founded by HNOC’s late director of the Williams Research Center, Alfred E. Lemmon, as a free, educational concert for music lovers in New Orleans and throughout the state.
Dedicated to the study of Louisiana’s contributions to the world of classical music, the award-winning series reaches an audience of more than 30,000 individuals through live radio broadcasts and online video streaming of the concert.
Since the program’s inception, Musical Louisiana has garnered both local and national recognition. The 2008 presentation, “Music of the Mississippi,” won the Big Easy Award for Arts Education; “Made in Louisiana” (2009) received an Access to Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; “Identity, History, Legacy: La Société Philharmonique” (2011) received an American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; and “Envisioning Louisiana” (2013) won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support its educational component. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made possible the streaming of the 2012, 2013, and 2014 concerts. The 2014 program, “Postcards from Paris,” attracted viewers in ten countries and reached 26,000 listeners through public radio broadcasts.
Donate
We invite you to support the Musical Louisiana series through a voluntary donation. More information is available by calling (504) 598-7109.