(Photo Courtesy of Mary Elizabeth Williams.)

Opera Lafayette and OperaCréole present “RE|STORE: Edmond Dédé’s ‘Morgiane'” in four cities across the U.S. including New Orleans, Washington, DC, New York City, and College Park, MD. The preview of this never-performed, long-lost masterpiece took place at the historical St. Louis Cathedral, where Dédé was baptized, featuring The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra playing modern instruments on January 24th.

On February 3rd, the opera will have its highly anticipated world premiere at Lincoln Theater in Washington D.C. with a pre-show discussion beginning at 6:00 p.m. EST. This premiere features The Opera Lafayette Orchestra playing period instruments, along with an outstanding cast including soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams as Morgiane.

“Morgiane” will also have its not-to-be-missed NYC premiere on February 5th at 7:00 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, followed by a premiere on February 7th at 7:00pm in College Park, MD at Dekelboum Concert Hall at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

Ahead of the upcoming shows, OperaWire had the opportunity to learn more from Williams about the importance of Edmond Dédé’s opera.

OperaWire: What do you want our readers to know about “Morgiane?” Can you tell us about the story behind the opera from your perspective?

Mary Elizabeth Williams: Well, I guess if I had to write a lede to the story of Edmond Dédé and his opera “Morgiane” it would be “WORTH THE WAIT.” Dédé wrote “Morgiane” in 1887 and his work is finally seeing stage lights 138 long years later!

Edmond Dédé was a cosmopolitan in every sense of the word. Born a Creole free man of color in New Orleans, he lived and worked in Mexico and Paris before spending the bulk of his career working in both popular music halls and opera houses in Bordeaux, France. He was a very successful musician, conducting and composing in one of the most competitive markets in the world. He wrote many songs and comic operas, but “Morgiane” was his first (and probably only) foray into writing French grand opera. When the theater in Bordeaux that commissioned Dédé changed its management, “Morgiane” fell out of favor and into obscurity. But thank goodness the story does not end here! This 19th-century score has been rediscovered in the 21st century, and I am thrilled and honored to be a part of tending to thirsty musical seeds that Dédé sowed in centuries past. The music he has left us is beautiful and worthy, and those of us who love classical music are better off for knowing Dédé’s name and work.

OW: How did you come across this piece and what resonates most with you about Edmond Dédé’s composition?

MEW: I was informed about the existence of this piece years ago, when I was singing “Tosca” with New Orleans Opera. NOLA native Givonna Joseph, who was also working at the opera at that time, told me about this lost Dédé manuscript she had come across in her research. She was very passionate about getting “Morgiane” onstage. I told her then that I would be happy to help however I could, but as with most things that are worth doing, this project would take a village. Givonna has been working for over a decade to get a team together who could handle all that producing “Morgiane” has required, and when she and Patrick Quigley met a few years ago, things really started moving. Patrick and Givonna, along with their respective partner organizations (The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Lafayette and Opera Créole) have spearheaded this “Morgiane” debut campaign masterfully by pooling their talents and covering all the bases: the digitization of the original handwritten (and tattered) manuscript, the creation of a piano/vocal score, a translation of the libretto, the organization of a four-city concert tour, livestream and studio recordings, not to mention all the fundraising necessary to support this mammoth venture. It is truly impressive how effectively this team has collaborated to accomplish its goals.

As difficult and time-consuming as this project has been, being able to work on Dédé’s music together makes it all worthwhile. As I become more and more acquainted with this score, my appreciation for Dédé’s elegance grows. Dédé managed to blend many disparate musical styles and traditions to create a satisfying work that is both novel and traditional, comic and classical, new world and old world. It is his embrace of and mastery over these diverse musical languages that make his work stand the test of time, and allow “Morgiane” to teach us something even now, almost a century and a half after he wrote it.

Photos by Amber Johnson, Historic New Orleans Collection.

OW: How are you experiencing your voice in a new way through Dédé’s score? How does Dédé write for the singer?

MEW: When Givonna first approached me about “Morgiane,” she had me in mind for Amine, Morgiane’s daughter, which is a very high soprano role. The only positive thing about this whole endeavor taking over a decade to come to fruition is that I have had time to age into the much more comfortable role of Amine’s mother! Morgiane is described by Dédé as a contralto, but I disagree with him there…I would say that this role is for a meaty mezzo-soprano, or a Zwischenfach (sort of a hybrid soprano/mezzo voice). It’s true, I have had to get much more comfortable with my chest voice, but Morgiane’s ensemble singing sits quite high! I really love singing this role. This is an ensemble show, and every character is essential, but Morgiane is the centerpiece of the drama; she is the glue that holds the whole madness together! All the roles are vocally demanding, but interesting. The roles of Morgiane’s daughter Amine and her fiancé Ali sit quite high, as does the role of Morgiane’s husband Hassan…but that is very much in line with the style of writing for French voices at that time. Think “Pelléas et Mélisande” (Debussy) and “Les Pêcheurs de Perles” (Bizet)…for those characters, it requires a similar vocalism.

Musically, I would say that “Morgiane” is perched at an intersection of Mozart, Donizetti, and Offenbach…and the story is a melange of “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.” I have spent most of my career singing tragic opera. I usually don’t make it out alive. It’s wonderful to play a role in a dark comedy where nobody dies at the end!

OW: Are there any challenges you are overcoming along the way?

MEW: This is opera. There are always challenges, in every production! The biggest challenge here has been time, or the lack thereof. We have planned a very tight schedule, so there is no room for sickness….or snowstorms. The record-breaking snowfall in New Orleans last week made our rehearsals shut down for three days, and caused us to postpone our premiere by one day. We performed highlights of “Morgiane” to a packed cathedral after having had only one session with the orchestra. I hope that nothing else will interrupt our calendar over these next two weeks. We are scheduled down to the nanosecond!

OW: What are you most excited about for audiences when experiencing a live performance?

MEW: Live performances for me are sacred, no matter the piece. I believe that live performances are like seances: they are a unique moment of communication and conversation between all the contributing spirits, past and present: the composer, the librettist, the musicians and crew, and the audience. This exchange is unique to each performance, and can never be exactly replicated. The air moves around us differently in each performance, and that is what thrills us all about being in the room when live music is being performed. I am anxious to give Dédé his chance to take part in the conversation again, and hope that audiences feel his presence through our performance of his music.

OW: What are your favorite parts about this production so far?

MEW: I am a singer who loves to rehearse. In New Orleans, our rehearsal process was truncated by the weather, but we are having a grand time here in DC, making music together, taking risks, and doing the granular work of creating a cohesive musical ensemble. We spend a lot of time thinking about what Dédé would have wanted, and I hope that we are doing him proud.

OW: Do you have any additional information you’d like for us to share?

MEW: I think the most important thing I want to communicate to OperaWire’s audience is that “Morgiane” is fun, beautiful, and worth the effort to see. Please come to a performance in DC (February 3), NYC (February 5) or College Park (February 7). If you can’t do that, watch the livestream from Maryland on February 7th. Join the conversation.