Monday, November 11, 2013

'Opera; A Trouble In The Past But A Prospect For The Future' by Dominique-René de Lerma

Photograph © Antonio Green 2013

Troubled Island

Dominique-René de Lerma

We know that opera in Italy began at the start of the seventeenth century when the late Renaissance realized that Greek drama involved singing, but the fragments of ancient notation could not be deciphered.  So those interested in the rebirth of this art elected to write new music to qualify the emotions intended in retelling the Greek stories.  Soon after, Monteverdi's musical psychological  depiction raised the declamatory text so that a rich history of musical theater was born.  The entertainment became so attractive that the French, Germans, and British began adopting musical styles that were harmonious with their own languages.  But the increased complexity of productions -- acting, singing, the sets, the instrumentalists -- became so expensive that only a few courts or united magnates could support the productions, and that obligated governmental financial support.  Nonetheless,  the public was captivated, especially in Italy -- it was no longer an entertainment only for the wealthy -- except in the United States.  With a government that showed no interest in the arts until the 1960s, opera became largely a social event where those of financial means could impress each other from their ornate boxes.  Never mind those who were seated on the ground floor, who saw opera as music of the people.
There had been efforts by the African Americans to participate, perhaps not fully  realizing that atavistic urge for ritual, music, and theatrics that had permeated their ancestral sociology.  No aspect of music in Africa is regarded as a cultural adornment; it is that essential element that validates the rites of passage. 
While an interest in opera was part of that desire of African Americans to "elevate" the culture, the motivation differed from many of those who subscribed to the new Metropolitan Opera. Their efforts were almost consistently frustrated for want of financial support and in the past they had to use their talents in minstrelsy, with a aria or ensemble thrown in at the finale of a show, taken for the most part from the current Italian repertoire.
So there were composers also.   The first operas by a Black composer were those by Saint-Georges, performed in Paris in the final days before the French Revolution.  The music was praised, but the librettos (by a second person) blemished the results.
The number of operas by Black Americans is enormous and is constantly growing.  But only one has ever been produced by a non-Black company.  That total is enlarged when we properly include contemporary ballad operas -- those works in more popular musical styles, with dialogue and contemporary plots like Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Weber's Der Freischütz -- works recently termed "musicals."  And we do not yet speak of those operas from Nigeria and Ghana, created without any reference to the European tradition.
But the composition of an opera takes a lot of time; it is not worth it to invest months of work without any income, not knowing if it would ever be staged and only hoping then that the work would be a success.  Mozart, who loved opera from his pre-teen years, was more than hesitant to consider this investment if he were not reasonably assured of a production. William Grant Still's passion to write operas urge was so great, it won over an assurance of production. "All of my life, my aim has been opera."  That interest must have had origins in the old one-sided RCA 78rpm recordings collected by his step-father: arias sung by Caruso, Galli-Curci, and those others who had sung Italian opera in the early days of recordings.
            If the opera were a success, the time invested is worth it.  The current status assures the composer of substantial reward from performance rights as well as access to the performance materials.  Still was so convinced that Troubled Island would be properly recognized that he had dreams of a new home in La Jolla. 
But this was not to be.  Prior to production, a group of New York music critics planned to give unsupportive reviews.  The work was a great success with the audiences, but that was not enough.  The sordid details are provided in Just tell the story by Judith Anne Still and Lisa M. Headlee, which book provides highly significant information on the entire post-Harlem Renaissance scene..
In 1936, Still secured Langston Hughes to write the libretto for an opera on the liberation of Haiti from European colonialism -- Troubled Island.  Hughes left the next year to cover the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, leaving a portion of the text to be provided by Mrs. Still, Verna Arvey, already adept with writing.  The composition was finished in 1939 and the première was set for the New York City Center première in 1945, to be conducted by Leopold Stokowski (whose extensive works for civil rights has yet to be told and to whom the opera was dedicated).  The plans were enthusiastically supported by New York's opera-loving mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, and an equally activist Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President.  But Stokowski resigned in 1945 and left New York for a position with the Hollywood Bowl; the production was delayed.  When the conductor Laszlo Halasz began production plans in 1946, the Board of Directors stated funds were not available for this work, although they were able to mount other works.  Plans for 1948 were changed, but Troubled Island was finally staged in 1949 on the final day of March, the first of April and the first of May (the third performance was conduted by Julius Rudel).   Excepting  the newspaper coverage, it was a success, with 22 curtain calls.  Nevertheless, future performances were cancelled. 
It was a mixed cast, but with several major singers of the time.  The role of Dessalines was initiated by Robert Weede, with the second and third performances provided by Lawrence Winters (who gave up hopes of an American career and moved to Hamburg three years later).  The role of Papaloi was created by Robert McFerrin, Sr., six years before he became the first Black male with the Metropolitan Opera and one year before the birth of his son, who had a career of his own.  Francis Bible and Marie Powers were already well established artists.  The two choreographers were Jean Léon Destiné and George Balanchine.  The composer was pleased with the casting, not minding that some had to adjust their complexion.  But he was alerted prior to the performance of a problem.
"Billy, because I'm your friend I think I should tell you this -- The critics have had a meeting to decide what to do about your opera," critic Howard Taubman told Still.  "They think the colored boy [Still was then 54!] has gone far enough, and they have voted to pan your opera."   (Perhaps it would be judicious not to call attention to the same attitude, still rampantly present among the radical right-wing politicians more than sixty years later regarding another "colored boy.")  The complete work was never heard again until 19 October 2013 when the South Shore Opera Company presented a single sold-out performance in the Paul Robeson Theatre, South Shore Cultural Center on South Shore Drive.  Prefatory remarks were offered by Lesly Condé, consul general of Haiti.
Scenes had been excerpted for a performance at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on 31 March 2009, commemorating to the day the première of sixty years earlier.  This was prefaced by comments from the Schomburg's director, Howard Dodson, and on the work's history by Cori Ellison of the New York City Opera.  The performers were from Opera Noire, a New York ensemble established by Robert Mack, Kenneth Overton, and Barton Coleman, which readily won support from conductor Willie Anthony Waters, soprano Martina Arroyo, and mezzo-soprano Hilda Harris (the latter stars of the Metropolitan Opera).
In the future are plans for a British production by Black Swan Productions. A Series of "workshop performances" were offered the Londoners at Gatehouse from 31 October through 2 November, only days after the Chicago production, and there are rumors that a film of the opera is under consideration. 
A mural, twenty-four feet long, adorns the wall of 2520 West  View Street in Los Angeles, painted by Noni Olabisi and Charles Freeman, commissioned by the Cultural Affairs Office of the city.  Depicting the Haitian Revolution, Olabsi has portrayed William Grant Still right in the middle of the work.
The plot concerns the first days of the birth of Haiti's freedom, a event that in Black history worried Americans who had already experienced Black rebellions.  In fact, the United States did not recognize this continent's first Black government until 1862 -- more than a half-century later -- by Abraham Lincoln in the early days of this country's own civil war.
The Chicago production had originally announced  the opera would be with orchestra, but sufficient funding was not available.  Given Still's distinctive orchestral voice, this was very unfortunate.  The orchestra was replaced by two pianos, performed more than satisfactorily by Peter Slavin and Pedro Yanez.
Kirk Walker, who sang the bass role of Dessalines, was rescued by opera from a childhood that was more tragic than is stereotypic (http://online.wsj.con/articles/SB850511590445857000).  He had just made his operatic debut when, in 2000, he won the regional competition of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.  He is now a member of the Lyric Opera's American Artists program, performing for young people throughout the Midwest's inner cities.
Gwendolyn Brown (contralto, Azelia) was also a regional winner of the Met auditions, and a successful contestant with the Caruso International Voice Competition, the New York Oratorio Society, and the National Opera Association..  A Fiskite, she has performed the role of Maria in Porgy and Bess in Boston, Seattle, Washington, New Orleans, Germany, Italy, Spain, Amsterdam, and Brussells.
Tenor Antonio Watts (Stenio) may be heard at http://www.youtube.com.watch?v=bhTDhu9mEG0.
Cornelius V. Johnson, III, artistic director of the South Shore Opera Company, sang the role of Vuval.[1]  A graduate of Morehouse College, he is a music professor within the City Colleges of Chicago.
Very highly recommended is the brief coverage of the opera company, found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12BXVi_KkkZs.
This performance marked the opera company's fifth season.  It is a "small but marvelously ambitious" troupe, reviewer Andrew Patner commented.  He and Noah Kahrs seem to be the only representatives from the press, despite the unquestioned interest of the major newspapers when the cast appears with the Lyric Opera. Is the assumption that a Black production does not merit attention?  We have even heard that the Lyric did not send a representative to see how well their protégés did when on their own, formally invited or not. 
But Steve Robinson was present.  He is Executive Vice President of WFMT, Chicago's splendid FM radio station, heard locally at 98.7, but by others internationally (this writer being one) with computer assistance at www.wfmt.com.  Robinson is a Boston University graduate, whose work for Chicago radio has merited formal recognition from ASCAP and won both the Deems Taylor and Dushkin awards.

Serving as my proxies were my son Antonio and his wife, Emilisa.  Although they opted for the VIP tickets (reserved seating, followed by the dinner), they were among a large number who initially found no seating available; the hall's 600 seats were filled.  The overflow was then accommodated with supplementary seating which had to be brought into the theater.  Following the performance they went to a huge hall and stood in a long line for the buffet supper.  During this period they were able to speak with the conductor Leslie Dunner and the cast (Antonio holds a master's degree from Northwestern University with stage experience in Illinois, California, and Maryland and made his radio debut in Lyons, although by profession he is a computer specialist).  He was struck by the wish the performers expressed for more than this single performance -- and, judging by the size of the audience and their reception, this would have been readily justified.  Learning a role takes a great deal of time (indications are that those who were paid received an honorarium of only $200).  His belief  that the work, now having succeeded so well in this try-out, should now be scheduled by the Lyric Opera.  A major factor in this production, however, was the presentation of this work by a Black composer and performers sent a strong message to an audience that now might wish to see this opera mounted by the Lyric.  Perhaps even more valuable was the number of teenagers attending the South Shore production.

Andrew Patner, highly respected journalist and regular commentator on WFMT, wrote an extensive review for the Sun-times: "Symbolism alone could have made this a special night.  Performed at  the South Shore Cultural Center is the old home of the South Shore Country Club, founded in the early 1900s as a Whites-and Protestants-only lakefront redoubt, in the Center's Paul Robeson Theatre by an all-Black cast before a standing-room-only, largely African-American crowd, the event would have carried bite even if it did not concern the Haitian Revolution -- complete with the sounds of African drums and the moves of the native dancers ...  To mark its fifth anniversary, the small but marvelously ambitious South Shore Opera Company rightly chose to focus on singers and staging and to have conductor Leslie B. Dunner lead a rich two-piano adaptation of Still's wide-ranging score by performer-composer Peter Slavin (partnered by the equally accomplished Pedro Yanez).  With a cast of 25, including a superb chorus prepared by Charles Thomas Hayes, directed by Amy Hutchinson, designers Shanna Philipson (collectively period and Caribbean production) and Julian Pike (lights) and eight dancers  added for Kia Smith's strong  choreography, South Shore made a handsome and convincing case for a production with full orchestra.  Given Lyric Opera of Chicago's current interest in serious community engagement and production, a
local partnership would be a great place to start ... Bravo to South Shore Opera Company for rescuing the collaborative work of these men [Still and Hughes] largely lost to history, and preparing the way for its wider rediscovery."
The Lyric Opera of Chicago, which justly prides itself among the world's leading companies, has been nurtured on the obligatory diet of Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner, but in recent years has enriched the scene with new works by William Bolcom and Anthony Davis (the latter notably by Amistad).
Patner's unrestrained enthusiasm is a far cry from the reports of that cabal of covert racists in 1949: "Composer Still's music, sometimes lusciously scored, sometimes naively melodic, often had more prettiness than power. In all, Troubled Island had more of the soufflé of operetta than the soup bone of opera" [Time magazine].  "One was never sure one was hearing a first-rate performance of an inferior work or a second-rate performance of a good one" [John Briggs, in the New York post].   "The result is a mixture of styles signifying talent and a feel for opera but achieving little more than a suggestion of it" [Miles Kastendieck in the New York Journal-American and Christian Science Monitor].  The journalists were true to their pre-performance pledge, if not to the musical obligation of their profession.
The only recordings, not professionally produced, are from the New York performance.  These are only available from William Grant Still Music (809 W. Riordan Road, Suite 100, Box 109, Flagstaff AZ 86001-0810; phone 928-526-9355, fax 928-526-0321; Email wgsmusic@bigplanet.com).  The two-cassette version (WSGTI-3001) is $14.95; the CD version (WGSTI-3001CD) is $21.00.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Troubled opera" in Time (1949/IV11).  Available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0.9171.8000096.00.html.
"William Grant Still" (includes a list of his nine operas)  Available at http://www.usopera.com/composers/still.html
"Winters sings at Center; Baritone is heard in Troubled Island  with City Opera Unit" in New York times (1949/IV/11). 
André, Naomi, ed.  Blackness in opera, ed. by Naomi André, Karen M. Bryan, and Eric Saylor.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Cheatham, Wallace.  Dialogues on opera and the African American experience.  Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997.
Kahrs, Noah.  "Revolutionary revival; For one night, Troubled Island returned to life" in South Side weekly (2013/X/22).  Available at http:/southsideweekly.com/revolutionary-revival/
Kernoodle, Tammy Lynn.  "Arias, Communists, and conspiracies: The history of Still's Troubled Island" in Musical Quarterly, v83n4 (1999) p487-508.
Patner, Andrew.   "Overdue Chicago premiere of Troubled Island, a triumph" in Sun-times media (2013/X/20).
Quin, Carolyn L.  "William Grant Still" in American music, v28n4 (2010/Winter)
Smith, Eric Ledell.  Blacks in opera; An encyclopedia of people and companies, 1873-1993.  Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., 1995.
Soll, Beverly.  Arias, duets, and scenes from the operas of William Grant Still.  3 vols.  Flagstaff: Master-Player Library, 1998.
Soll, Beverly.  I dream a world; The operas of William Grant Still. Layetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2005.
Soll, Beverly.  Spiritualism and religion in the operas of William Grant Still. Houston: National Association of African American Studies, 2005.
Still, Judith Anne.  Just tell the story by Judith Anne Still and Lisa M. Headlee.  Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 2006.

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Dominique-René de Lerma


[1] President of the South Shore Opera Company of Chicago is Lillian King, public relations management is in the hands of  Gary Osserwaade.  The organization's secretary is Bobbie Greer.  Email address: opera@southshoreopera.org.

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