Scott Joplin's Treemonisha at Bluma Appel Theatre

In 1911, legendary ragtime composer Scott Joplin created an opera unlike anything that had come before. Treemonisha is one of the few live performance pieces about the immediate post-slavery era written by a Black person who lived through it.

Joplin was never to see Treemonisha receive a full production in his lifetime, and it survives to the present day only in an incomplete form. Volcano has been working on this new version since 2016.

Led by a Black, female creative team from across North America, Joplin’s visionary tale of community and female leadership, has been reimagined with a new story and libretto by playwright and broadcaster Leah-Simone Bowen (The Secret Life of Canada), working with Emmy-nominated co-librettist Cheryl L. Davis. The show also incorporates expanded musical arrangements and new orchestrations by composers Jessie Montgomery (“Composer of the Year” – Musical America, Chicago Symphony Mead Composer in Residence, Sphinx Medal of Excellence), and Jannina Norpoth (2-time Grammy-nominated violinist/composer & first violin of NYC’s PUBLIQuartet). In the title role, Canadian soprano Neema Bickersteth – “an incredible performer” (The Guardian) whose “operatic soprano voice is a rich, otherworldly instrument” (The Scotsman, Edinburgh) – heads an all-Black cast, with an all-Black majority-female, nine-piece chamber orchestra performing on Western and African instruments. Award-winning Canadian stage director Weyni Mengesha, and internationally acclaimed Panamanian American conductor Kalena Bovell helm this ground-breaking version of Joplin’s opera. This marks the first all-Black orchestra and the first Black woman conductor in Canadian opera history.