New Orleans’ OperaCreole To Revive Forgotten Work Of 19th Century Black Composer

Edmond Dédé, a native of New Orleans, was part of the hub of operetta composers of color who helped popularize the music style within the city.

OperaCréole of New Orleans is working to revive the oldest piece created by a Black American, with the help of Opera Lafayette. The two companies are working to produce Edmond Dédé’s “Morgiane” for its first-ever live performance.

Nearly a year in the making, the show hopes to shed light on a Black composer in opera whose art never received his due recognition. Dédé’s work was assumed to be forgotten, only to be rediscovered in Harvard’s Houghton Library. In a gift by a former archivist at HBCU Xavier University of Louisiana, OperaCréole has been granted the opportunity to restore the piece for a modern stage rendition. According to Operawire, working with Opera Lafayette, a period instrument opera company, will help ensure that the over 500 pages of music can be transcribed and played for a new audience. The company’s artistic director designate, Patrick Dupre Quigley, spoke of the piece’s “rightful place” in the history of opera in a press release.

“‘Morgiane’ is the most important piece of American music that no one has ever heard,” expressed Quigley. “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.”

The measure to take this work and finally showcase it will be a semblance of justice for esteemed Black composers during the 19th century whose music was marginalized. Dédé himself was a native of New Orleans, and part of the hub of operetta composers of color who helped popularize the music style within the city. However, upon expatriating to Paris, he curated over 75 arrangements during his career that ranged from operetta to popular music and ballet. He drafted Morgiane in France, particularly in the city of Bordeaux, during the tail end of his writings.

Performing the work in the city that first inspired Dédé’s music will be a tribute to all the Black musicians who were never rightfully championed, paying homage to his artistic triumph and substantial place in the history of American opera. The showing of Morgiane will have its inaugural premiere in New Orleans on Nov. 20, with subsequent shows in Washington, D.C. and New York in 2025.