About the work
Treemonisha is a three-act opera by Scott Joplin, who wrote both music and libretto around 1910 and self-published the piano-vocal score in 1911. He gave an unstaged, unorchestrated read-through for a small audience in a Harlem rehearsal hall in 1915; the actual fully staged premiere did not take place until 27 January 1972 in Atlanta, presented by Morehouse College and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in an orchestration by T. J. Anderson, conducted by Robert Shaw.
Plot
On a former plantation in Arkansas, Treemonisha, a foundling discovered under a tree, grows up as the only educated person in her community. When conjurers kidnap her in revenge, her friend Remus frees her; she then persuades the community to abandon superstition and retribution in favour of education and reason.
Cultural significance
Treemonisha is regarded as one of the first operas by an African American composer, blending European opera with ragtime, spirituals and African American dance. Joplin never saw the work published in full score or performed complete; only after its rediscovery in the 1970s was the opera regularly staged, and in 1976 he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize.