Like a minister gathering in her flock on Sunday afternoon March 15, 2026, Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello appeared on the sidewalk outside The George Washington University Lisner Auditorium to engage enthusiastically with the audience as they arrived for the colorful WNO production of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. When Zambello appeared on stage for the official welcome, the operagoers rose to their feet and gave her a thunderous ovation. No church mice in this mostly sold out audience. This crowd was politically engaged and ecstatic that WNO had left what Zambello called the arts center that shall remain unnamed.
In keeping with the mood of the audience, Treemonisha offers a story pertinent in the current political situation in the United States. It involves an abandoned child found by a liberated Black couple during the years 1866 to 1884. This couple leads the community abandoned by their former white plantation overlords during the Reconstruction Period. Childless, Ned and Monisha, decide to adopt the baby girl as their own. Initially, the child is named Monisha after the adoptive mother. Later when the girl favors play under the tree where she was found, her name becomes Treemonisha. Ned and Monisha send her away to be schooled by a white woman, and she returns an educated young woman who will improve the Texarkana community where they live. Joplin’s libretto completed in 1911 champions education over ignorance and superstition, truth over lies, good behavior over bad, and nonviolence over use of force. It’s also a feminist story way ahead of its time.
Treemonisha is a folk opera with an all-Black cast that presents scenes from Black cultural life. Thus, we see community gatherings like the corn-husking hoedown (dance) and wall-less church services by the itinerant Parson Alltalk who comes to town to deliver a sermon of “good advice.” The music combines classic ragtime, which Joplin helped establish through his dozens of published works, spirituals, and elements of Western opera and ballet music.
While Treemonisha was presented in a 1915 concert reading with Joplin at the piano, it never had a full production until the Houston Grand Opera produced it in 1972. Joplin’s original orchestrations for Treemonisha have been lost, and WNO engaged composer Damien Sneed to adapt and orchestrate the score. Librettist Kyle Bass reworked the libretto, adding transitions and dialog to help the flow of the opera. Sneed at the piano and DeAnte Haggerty-Willis on banjo played onstage throughout the entire performance, supplementing the 21-piece Washington National Opera Orchestra in the pit.
Director Denyce Graves, the recently retired opera star, chose many experienced singers for her production of Treemonisha. Some, like Justin Austin as Remus, Tichina Vaughn as Monisha, and Kevin Short as Ned, have had significant roles in Metropolitan Opera productions. A stand-out performer included second-year Cafritz Young Artist Viviana Goodwin, the soprano in the lead role as Treemonisha, who powerfully projected her lyrical voice. Also of note was bass-baritone Kevin Short (Treemonisha’s father Ned) who in his aria “When Villains Ramble Far and Near” delivered one of the lowest notes (a low D) this reviewer has ever heard sung.
The dancers, their choreography, and costumes added pleasing energy and color to the production. Set Designer Lawrence Moten made the most of the Lisner Auditorium stage, which seemed perfectly sized for Joplin’s work. The sets were a simple variation on a colorful paisley backdrop, and the design and lighting enhanced the atmosphere in a memorable manner but without overstepping. Toward the end of the opera as an added extra, Treemonisha and Remus “jump the broom,” a wedding tradition associated with enslaved people in the American south. The final number “A Real Slow Drag” which is a celebratory dance number has a choreographic element of the Cake Walk which was a slow strutting parade put on by enslaved people to both entertain the slave masters and to make surreptitious fun of them.
Next, Washington National Opera will present Robert Ward’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera The Crucible in five performances from March 21 to 29 at The GWU Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC. The Crucible is another opera that speaks to the political situation of our time. Based on the WNO’s ability to mount such a successful production of Treemonisha under less than ideal circumstances, this reviewer urges opera fans to bring their family and friends and show support for a worthy company making every effort to offer relevant productions.
Karren LaLonde Alenier
