Sally McKee, now a retired history professor at ٺƵ, had written and taught on domestic slavery in Renaissance Italy and the Venetian Colony of Crete. Her life, and research, took a turn in the early 2000s when a librarian in New Orleans turned her onto a cache of manuscripts that Harvard had purchased from a Paris collection in 2000.
Buried in a collection of 19th-century opera manuscripts at Harvard was a four-act opera written in 1888 by Edmond Dédé. He was a free African American man who was born in New Orleans in 1827, and moved to Bordeaux, France in the 1850s. There he had more freedom of movement as a Black man living in pre-Civil War United States. In France, he also gained popularity as a composer and music conductor. But for unknown reasons, the opera was not performed, but for the overture.
His opera, “MǰԱ” remains the oldest known opera composed by an African American.
Just 130 years later, the work is finally being performed in full.
“Morgiane,” was performed, in part, in New Orleans in January. It will be performed in February in the Washington D.C. area and New York.
From the New York Times Jan. 28, 2025
was performed, in an abbreviated form, last week in New Orleans, but it is set to be performed in full next month in Washington, D.C.; College Park, Md.; and in New York, on Feb. 5 at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The show, a joint of production of and , features a Black cast, an orchestra playing period instruments, and a claim of historical importance: “MǰԱ” may be the oldest existing opera by a Black American.
"Morgiane," or the Sultan of Ispahan, was performed in abbreviated form, in French, at ٺƵ Pitzer Hall in 2017 when McKee’s biography on Dédé was published.
“It was thrilling then to hear the music come to life even in a limited form,” McKee said this week about the ٺƵ Department of Music performance.
“Now, I find it even more moving to hear the full opera as presented by Opera Créole and Opera Lafayette. If only — if only — Edmond Dédé could hear his own work produced on stage,” said McKee, who will attend the Washington D.C. production. (She missed New Orleans because of a snow storm that grounded her flight.)
“He deserves so much more attention than he received in his lifetime and thereafter.” — McKee
The performances by the two foremost companies in the United States with respective expertise in historical Black and French opera — and — have been celebrated with formal talks, exhibitions and celebrations. Some called it the "Best opera never performed."
The original transcripts of the opera are currently on display at the in Washington D.C through March 2.
And multiple media, including the , Washington Post and NBC news are extolling the lost — and now found — opera.
Media Resources
Original ٺƵ Arts Blog story about the musical performance and book in 2017
Media contact: Karen Nikos-Rose, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu, 530-219-5472