{"id":16202,"date":"2025-02-03T16:55:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/?p=16202"},"modified":"2025-02-03T16:55:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:55:19","slug":"oldest-opera-black-american-composer-debut-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/2025\/02\/03\/oldest-opera-black-american-composer-debut-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Oldest Opera By A Black American Composer To Debut This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16203\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16203\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16203\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede.jpg\" alt=\"Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9\" width=\"1200\" height=\"678\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede-1024x579.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede-768x434.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16203\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Composer Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The recently re-discovered opera \u201cMorgiane\u201d by Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9 will debut in New York City next month. D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2019s work may be the oldest opera written by a Black American.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ear to the ground:<\/strong> This week, Opera Lafayette and Op\u00e9raCr\u00e9ole will debut <a href=\"https:\/\/operalafayette.org\/restore\">their co-production of Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2019s opera \u201cMorgiane.\u201d<\/a> They will perform the entire opera in D.C., Maryland and at New York City\u2019s Jazz at Lincoln Center following an excerpted production that premiered in New Orleans in January. D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2019s 4-act opera was completed in 1887, yet it has never been fully staged or presented. The companies claim the work may be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/28\/arts\/music\/edmond-dede-morgiane-opera.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare\">the oldest opera written by a Black American composer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Digging deeper:<\/strong> Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9 was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1827. A free person of colour, D\u00e9d\u00e9 was a recognized musician in New Orleans during his early life. In 1855, he moved to Bordeaux, France after mounting restrictions for Black people rendered a compositional career of the calibre he hoped insurmountable. In France, D\u00e9d\u00e9 worked as a conductor to supplement his composing. He never saw his magnum opus, \u201cMorgiane,\u201d performed. Its manuscript was only recently discovered by a Harvard music cataloguer who purchased a collection of manuscripts from a Parisian music store.<\/p>\n<p>As the music community reels from last month\u2019s burning of one of Arnold Schoenberg\u2019s archives in Los Angeles, the story of \u201cMorgiane\u201d offers a beacon of light. Let\u2019s hope D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2019s and other composers\u2019 lost works may be heard in years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recently re-discovered opera \u201cMorgiane\u201d by Edmond D\u00e9d\u00e9 will debut in New York City next month. D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2019s work may be the oldest opera written by a Black American.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":16203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[488,193,3],"tags":[512],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Morgiane_Edmond-Dede.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16204,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16202\/revisions\/16204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16202"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}