Customer Reviews

Scott Joplin's Treemonisha [Original Cast Recording]

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I already have the Houston Treemonisha on vinyl but after sixteen years it is likely to deteriorate so I bought the CD too.

Treemonisha is not grand opera in the traditional sense; it is not a ragtime opera; it isn't this, that or the other thing. It is itself, uniquely beautiful, profoundly moving and probably a work of genius. Surely we, as music lovers of the world, have matured beyond the compulsion to place every piece of music in a defining category. Some criticisms of Treemonisha I have read are little less absurd than admonishing the player of an Indian raga for not modulating according to sonata form. The disease is a product of too much learning and sadly afflicts talented professionals even more commonly than it does the man in the street.

The forces behind Treemonisha are very eloquently explained in the liner notes, and need no further elaboration. The love and regard for the music by those producing and performing it is abundantly obvious. The technical quality of the recording is excellent and the notes provide even the most naive listener (and Treemonisha is superbly naive in the best sense of the word) with everything necessary in the way of background.

A review cannot influence a prejudiced mind. This work, if any, is a prime candidate for Debussy's maxim - just listen, it is enough.

Ignore the elitist condescension and musicological nit-picking in the Gramophone review above. Treemonisha waited 60 years for its first professional performance, by Houston Grand Opera in 1975. Apparently it's going to have to wait another 60 years for proper recognition of its remakrable music. And the music _is_ the thing. Sure, the plot is simplistic, the characters are two-dimensional... but then that's true of many an opera, yes? The music, the music. Gunther Schuller's vivid period orchestration provides a solid foundation for a fine group of singers and an outstanding chorus. What is alas necessarily msising from the CD is the dancing. Rags were _dance_ music. And what carried the HGO production from the fine to the sublime was the dancing. A commercial video of the original HGO production was released on Sony which caught a great deal of the celebratory energy released by the dancers. --Douglas Milburn

Forget what everyone says about this work: it is not a musical, a "folk opera" or a "ragtime opera", it is a full-blown romantic opera, pure and simple. Like Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" it has been mis-classified for years; unlike "Porgy", however, it has not met with the former's unmitigated success on stage or in the opera house.
Joplin's score languished for years: due mainly to the fact of his early, tragic death, and the fact that the world (or at least the U.S.) was not ready for a grand opera written by an African-American, particularly an African-American composer of "lowly" rag-time music. Certainly, some other composers of African descent had achieved some status by this time, but mostly in Europe (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor comes to mind, his oratorio "Hiawatha" was a concert favorite for years), and I think it was mostly prejudice that kept Joplin's score from being heard.
Luckily, the amazing Joplin revival in the early 70's (in no small part due to its use in the film "The Sting") enabled us to hear his final masterpiece at last, albeit without his original orchestration, which has been lost. Although it caused a brief stir and engendered a complete recording and a TV telecast (which was available for a time on VHS), we've heard little of it since.
And this is altogether puzzling, as the music is some of the most magnificent and appealing ever to be written for the operatic stage. True, it's not forward-looking (much of it hearkens back to Weber and Bellini) and the libretto is not a literary masterpiece (but few are). However, it shows signs of genius that are hard to ignore: Monisha's opening aria, the duet for Monisha and Ned in the third act; and, in particular, the choral writing -- "We Want You to be Our Leader" is nothing short of breathtaking in its complexity and beauty.
There are also plenty of delightful lighter passages as well, full of the magic of Joplin's piano compositions; in fact, the mixture of light and heavier music in the score is perfectly constructed.
But, despite its successful debut in the 70's, the work has never taken hold in the operatic repertoire. Some see it merely as a curiosity; in an artical in the LA times a number of years ago which dealt with operatic works by African-Americans, it was labeled as nothing more than an "entertainment". This is unjust in the extreme. Anyone listening to this work who can remain unmoved and/or uplifted by it must have a heart of stone or a massive chip on their shoulder.
This recording remains, alas, the only complete one to date, and it is simply wonderful, a fantastic record of a lovingly felt undertaking. The cast is perfect, with Balthrop, Allen and White being the standouts, and Schuller's conducting of his re-constructed orchestrations shows his love for and complete understanding of this score. I only say alas because this is a score that's worthy of new interpretation; this only may happen once the work is (finally) taken seriously as the first great American opera. Hopefully this day will eventually come.

Scott Joplin (1867/68 -- 1917) was one of the earliest composers with the ambition of combining African-American and classical musical forms. He is best-known for his ragtime compositions for the piano, but he also worked in more ambitious genres. By 1910, Joplin had composed his second opera, "Treemonisha". (The score of an earlier opera, "Guest of Honor" has been lost.) He spent much of the rest of life in an unsuccessful attempt to have Treemonisha staged and performed. The opera lay dormant until the mid-1970s when with the revival of interest in ragtime, Treemonisha was staged and performed by the Houston Lyric Opera Company and received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1976. Treemonisha was made into a movie and presented on television but, unfortunately, it has again largely faded from public sight. The work receives performances from time to time by music festivals and schools and by small opera companies.

Joplin wrote the libretto as well as the music for Treemonisha. The story is set around 1884 in a rural African American community near Texarkana, Arkansas. (Just before my rehearing of Treemonisha, I passed through Texarkana on the train en route to Dallas.) The story shows Joplin's vision of how rural African Americans could advance after the Civil War by combatting superstition and by hard work, good leadership, and, most of all, a commitment to education. Importantly, Joplin's story teaches the virtue of forgiveness and of not holding grudges.

The heroine of the opera is an 18 year old woman, Treemonisha, who had been found as an infant under a tree and raised as a daughter by Monisha and her husband Ned. Monisha and Ned sent Treemonisha to a white woman for education, as the community had no schools, and Treemonisha returns as the only member of the community who can read and write. As the opera opens, Treemonisha foils the efforts of a conjurer, Zodzetrick, to sell a "bag of luck" to Monisha. In response, the connjurers kidnap Treemonisha and are about to throw her into a wasp nest when she is rescued by a townsman, Remus, disguised as a scarecrow. The conjurers in turn are captured by field workers and taken to the town where at Treemonisha's urging, they are forgiven and released. Treemonisha is acknowledged as the leader of the community and she and Monisha lead the people in a ragtime dance "Marching Onward".

This 2-CD set of "Treemonisha" on Deutsche Gramophon was first released in 1976 with the initial enthusiasm over the opera and reissued in 2005 at a budget price. Gunther Schuller, who orchestrated Joplin's piano score, conducts with Carmen Balthorp singing the role of Treemonisha and Betty Allen singing Monisha.

With its music and storyline, the opera is a mixed success. The most successful numbers are those in which Joplin stays closest to a folk idiom, particularly the finale, "A Real Slow Drag" ("Marching Onward"), the conclusion to Act II, "Aunt Dinah has Blowed de Horn", the Ring Dance "We're Going Around" from Act I, and the number for a well-meaning but shallow itinerant preacher, Parson Alltalk, "Good Advice" from Act I. I thought the Prelude to Act III also worked well as a musical number, while the overture to the entire opera was less successful. Many of the remaining numbers, for Monisha and for male soloists Remus and Ned, seem to be based more closely on European opera. Joplin composed some lovely music in these sections, but they lack the spontaniety and verve of the dances and the more folkish sections of the score.

Treemonisha remains a landmark in American Opera, and Joplin's intended crowning achievement of his career. The opera's vision of uplift and forgiveness remains inspiring, even with the crudeness of the plot. Joplin's life goal of raising African American music to the stature of American classic was realized in part by his opera. An understanding of Treemonisha is essential to understanding Joplin's artistic aims and his achievement. It is fortunate that this recording of Treemonisha is available in this set and on a budget-priced DG set to introduce the listener to Joplin's opera.

Robin Friedman

Throughout Joplin's short 49 year long life, all he wanted to do was put forward the seriousness of ragtime, such an effect was achieved in his great ragtime opera "Treemonisha", but it was never recognised during his lifetime. With the re-emergence of ragtime in the 1970's Joplin's music and its sometimes elusive melancholic power came through, inspiring this great recording. Carmen Balthrop and Betty Allen are superb, and the recording from the orchestra is first class. Joplin's goal on writing this opera was to mix ragtime with opera to show that it could be just as "serious" as others. It is fair to say that Joplin's attempt, as a ragtime writer and not an opera writer is impressive and admirable, just as noone would expect an opera master like Puccini or Verdi to write ragtime.

Jerome Kern's 1927 broadway show "Showboat" is generally credited as the first 'American' musical. Yet, much of it sounds very European, looking to Lehar and Friml: think of numbers like "Only make believe I love you".
From a decade earlier than Showboat comes Joplin's "Treemonisha", a wonderful piece which is wholly American in idiom from start to finish, without a European number in it. Gunther Shuller's orchestration is lively and sympathetic. Not all of the singing is wholly admirable (though some of it is), and the libretto is of course somewhat execrable. But what stands out, oh, a mile, is the MUSIC. If only Joplin had had better opportunities open to him - perhaps collaboration with a good librettist, and Broadway connections to get the thing produced, what a show this might have been. As it is, we must be grateful that this production was recorded, so that we have the opportunity to enjoy Joplin's music, and musicologists can assess Joplin's rightful position in the development of American music.
A delight.
...

I love Scott Joplin's music, and have always been deeply moved by the story of his tragic life, especially his final descent into insanity. I was excited by the thought of this recording, and badly wanted to like it. So why don't I?

1. The libretto is really dreadful. This is by the composer, so he has no one else to blame. What's wrong with it? Not only is it stilted and false (as Joplin's music NEVER is) not only is the storyline puerile, but there is a strong streak of patronising condecension from the comparitively successful, educated, middle class Joplin towards "ignorant" and "superstitious" working class blacks. I find this particularly inexcusable in Joplin's case, even considered in the light of the times.

2. Generally the whole work shows poor to non-existent stagecraft. For instance, the plot is largely driven by long extended semi-recitative narrative numbers. These drag unbearably when listened to on a recording, although they may work better in a theatre I can see an audience getting lost there, too. Of course if Joplin had received a more sympathetic hearing from the highly prejudiced musical establishment of his day, and had a chance for a proper rehearsal process, he would probably have fixed a lot of this - to be fair he had little or no theatrical experience - but then we have to assess the work as we have it, rather than what might have been.

3. Finally, while the music certainly has its moments - even at its best there is little of the joyous spirit of the great rags. Joplin seems to have been over-intent on producing "serious" music, to the extent of suppressing the best of his own genius.

I am STILL glad I bought this recording - if only because it is such an important historical document. I just wish I really enjoyed listening to it. Perhaps it will grow on me - certainly I will have to give it a chance.

.....

Revisiting this review - I have had the chance to listen to this a few times since my original review, and while I basically stand by most of what I said then it HAS grown on me a little. One or two of the songs in particular.

I now tend to agree (at least in part) with some other reviewers that this work is totally unique, and that (at least by implication) it should not be judged by the standards of anything else. I may have taken it just a little too earnestly on my first attampt to come to grips with it.

The story of Scott Joplin's futile efforts to get Treemonisha performed or even recognized in his life time is tremendously sad. Thankfully the music has survived and was performed/produced so wonderfully well by Houston Grand Opera. This recording is as uniquely American as Gershwin's Porgy and Bess or Rhapsody in Blue. Listen to the music!! It's American and it's great!!

I got this from the library and spent much of last night and this morning listening to this. I LOVE it! While the music beautifully combines the standards of grand opera with the folk music of Black America, the story, in a way, is timeless.

Just about everybody in the opera is poor, so I would disagree that the play reflects classism as one reviewer has stated. Bascially, the "Conjurers" (salesmen of good luck charms) exploit the beliefs of their fellow poor Blacks, and they see the educated Treemonisha as a threat to their livelihood, and the story deals with this conflict. This could be adaptable to any people at any time in place (witness the political and religious charlatans of our own time and their attempts to incite the public against those who threaten to expose them).

But overall, I like the fact that for 1911, this is quite progressive in that a teenage girl (Treemonisha) who grows up poor, Black, and adopted is the heroine with leadership potential. The music and lyrics are quite uplifitng and amusing in spots, and the story is pretty easy to follow (although one wonders about some padded segments as "Pastor Alltalk's sermon" and the dancing bears, whch has little to do with the story).

I would love to see a filmed or stage perfromance of this. Move over Porgy and Bess-if you liked that, check out the originator.

Plain and simply one of the most memorable pieces of music ever written- opera or whatever. You will remember almost all of the music after listening.

Watch out- it's addictive (especially "A Real Slow Drag")...