When the corn huskers' joyous ring dance ends, Treemonisha wants to make a head garland like those worn by her friends for the harvest celebration. Her plan to cut leaves from the tree in front of her house prompts her mother Monisha's plea: No! not a leaf from that tree take. After Treemonisha and others ask to learn why that tree is “so dear,” Monisha responds with her aria “The Sacred Tree.”
Such trees appear in religious beliefs throughout the world, in primitive religions as well as the world’s major religions. In perhaps the earliest book devoted to the topic, The Sacred Tree, or The Tree in Religion and Myth (1897), Mrs. J. H. Philpot comments on this universal archetype: After Treemonisha criticizes the conjuror Zodzetrick for preying on others' superstitions rather than doing honest labor and again after her friend Remus explains how her education will “break the spell of superstition in the neighborhood,” Zodzetrick threatens and attempts to intimidate: You accuse me wrong for injury I’s not done, In Scott Joplin's Treemonisha, after attempting to sell Monisha a bag of luck and being rejected by her husband Ned, the conjuror Zodzetrick starts to leave the stage. Ned exits the stage, and Monisha enters their cabin. In what a hoodoo-believer would see as a dangerous move, Ned and Monisha's eighteen-year-old adopted daughter Treemonisha politely confronts the "king of Goofer dust land": Wait, sir, for a few moments stay, Treemonisha’s opening scene introduces audiences to the opera’s first two hoodoo elements: bags of luck and goofer dust. Although viewers and listeners cannot overlook Zodzetrick, the conjuror, many people today have little familiarity with hoodoo practices and materials. Because the opera centers on education’s battle against hoodoo superstitions, background knowledge of these traditional beliefs and practices not only enhance our understanding of characters, words, and actions, but also help us recognize Joplin’s familiarity with these superstitions and the care with which he brings that familiarity to life on stage.
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AuthorI am a retired community college professor and the great-granddaughter of composer, orchestrator, arranger, organist, and teacher William Christopher O'Hare. Click the "Read More" link to see each full blog entry.
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