The Emperor Jones (opera)
Encyclopedia
The Emperor Jones is an opera
in two acts with a prologue and interlude composed by Louis Gruenberg
to an English language libretto
adapted by Kathleen De Jaffa and the composer from Eugene O'Neill
's 1920 play, The Emperor Jones
. It premiered on January 7, 1933 at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City with Lawrence Tibbett
in the title role. Set on an unnamed island in the West Indies, the opera tells the story of African American
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and ex-convict who escaped to the island, set himself up as its tyrannical "Emperor", and became rich by exploiting the natives. The natives start a revolt against him, and as he tries to escape through the jungle, he is haunted by visions of his past life and the man he had murdered. As the natives close in, he commits suicide using the silver bullet which he had worn around his neck as a good-luck charm. With a score that incorporates elements of jazz
and negro spirituals, The Emperor Jones was the eleventh American opera to premiere at the Met, and has continued to be performed into the 21st century, albeit rarely.
in 1908, Giulio Gatti-Casazza
had set a goal of producing new English language operas by American composers. During his time at the Met, the company staged the world premieres of thirteen American operas. However, while the composers of these operas were American, only three of them actually had American subjects—Charles Cadman
's Shanewis (1918), Howard Hanson
's Merry Mount
(1934), and Louis Gruenberg
's The Emperor Jones.
The Emperor Jones
by American playwright Eugene O'Neill
had premiered in 1920 and was immensely popular. After reading the play, Gruenberg approached O'Neill with the idea of making it into an opera and discussed the possibilities with him over a two year period. In 1930 O'Neill gave Gruenberg the rights to adapt the play making any changes he saw fit but refused to have anything to do with creating the libretto
, despite the urging of the composer. In the end it was compiled by Kathleen De Jaffa in collaboration with Gruenberg. The actual lines were taken almost verbatim from the play. The only two significant changes were the addition of a chanting chorus for the orchestral prelude and interlude, similar to a Greek chorus
, and the death of Emperor Jones. In the play, he is killed by the natives while in the opera he shoots himself with a silver bullet as they are closing in on him. The libretto was finished by 1931, and Gruenberg rented a cottage in Old Orchard, Maine
, where he composed the opera over a period of fourteen months.
When the vocal score was complete, Gruenberg showed it to the Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber
, who at the time was Music Director of the Berlin State Opera
and known for championing new works. Kleiber was impressed and offered to give its world premiere in Berlin. Gruenberg planned to spend the next few months in Germany completing the orchestration. In the end, the premiere was postponed. The rise of Nazism
meant that an opera composed by a Jew with a black man as the central character was bound to cause trouble in Germany. (Two years later, Kleiber resigned from his post at the Berlin Opera in protest at the Nazi policy of banning Entartete Musik, "degenerate music", a label applied to virtually all works by Jewish composers). In the meantime, Olin Downes
, the critic for the New York Times, had also seen the score and recommended it to Gatti-Casazza, who accepted it for production during the Met's 1932/1933 season.
The Emperor Jones had its world premiere on January 7, 1933 at the Metropolitan Opera with Lawrence Tibbett
in the title role and was also broadcast live on radio. Although both Tibbett and Pearl Besuner used blackface
for their roles, the dancers were from Hemsley Winfield
's New Negro Art Theater, with Winfield himself taking the role of the Witch Doctor. Initially the Met had wanted to use white dancers in blackface, but backed down when Tibbett threatened to quit the production unless Winfield and his troupe performed. However, the Met billed the ensemble as the "Hemsley Winfield Ballet" instead of its real name and apart from Winfield did not credit any of the other dancers by name on the playbill. The premiere performance was conducted by Tullio Serafin
and directed by Alexander Sanine. The sets and costumes were designed by Jo Mielziner
who was 32 at the time and went on to create the stage designs for more than three hundred plays and musicals, including the original productions of Death of a Salesman
and Guys and Dolls
. Although it is a two act opera, the Met performed it without an interval for a total running time of one hour and fifteen minutes and presented it as the first half of a double bill with Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
.
Despite the mixed reviews, The Emperor Jones enjoyed a fair amount of initial success and won Gruenberg the Bispham Memorial Medal Award
for opera in English. It has continued to be performed into the 21st century (albeit rarely), long after the other American operas premiered in the Gatti-Casazza era had sunk into oblivion. The opera had fifteen performances over two seasons with the Met company which also took it on tour to Boston
, Brooklyn
, Hartford and Baltimore
. Apart from the Met performances, it was also staged in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in 1933 with Tibbett in the title role and was revived again in Chicago in 1946. In Europe it was performed in Amsterdam in 1934 with Jules Bledsoe
in the title role followed by performances in Brussels, Vienna, Milan, and London. The Teatro dell'Opera
in Rome performed it in 1951, and Michigan Opera Theatre
staged a major revival in 1979 with the African American baritone David Arnold in the title role. After its last performance at the Metropolitan Opera House
in February 1934, it was not seen again in New York City until 2001 when it was revived by a small company, Operaworks, in a 55 seat theatre using a digitized virtual orchestra in place of musicians. In 2009, the opera was revived in Italy for two performances at the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona
with Nmon Ford
in the title role and a full orchestra and chorus conducted by Bruno Bartoletti
.
Orchestral prelude
A chanting chorus calls for the death of Emperor Jones and an insistent drumbeat is heard in the distance.
ex-Pullman porter, gambler, and escaped convict had stowed away from the United States to an island in the West Indies several years previously. There, he had set himself up as the island's Emperor and during that time made himself rich at the expense of the natives as well as earning a reputation as a cruel tyrant. He now sits in his "palace" in the final days of his reign. His underling, the cockney
trader Smithers, tells Jones that the natives are planning a revolt against him. Full of bravado, Jones tells Smithers of the power which he has held over the island and that he has convinced the natives that he can only be killed by a silver bullet which he wears around his neck on a chain. Nevertheless, he tells Smithers that he is retiring as Emperor, has hidden supplies in the jungle, and plans make his escape to Martinique
with all the money he has stolen from the islanders.
Orchestral interlude
Again a chanting chorus is heard
, he starts running through the jungle, tearing off pieces of his uniform until he is left in rags. He then has visions of a convict gang with a guard, and a slave auction with the auctioneer calling Jones to the block. He fires his gun at the phantoms until he has used up all his bullets save the silver one he wears around his neck. In a moment of lucidity, he reflects on his past life and probable fate and sings a negro spiritual, "It's Me, O Lord, Standin' in de Need of Prayer". At dawn, he is still trying to find his way out of the jungle when a witch doctor
appears. He grabs Jones and starts dancing wildly around him. When he is surrounded by the soldiers and natives who have been hunting him, Jones realizes that all is lost, puts the silver bullet into his gun, places the gun against his head and fires. Smithers stands over the dead Emperor and utters the final words of the opera: "Dead as an 'erring. Well, Gor blimey, yer died in a grand style any'ow." The curtain falls as the drumbeats fade and the natives carry off Jones's body.
by New World Records
in Toward an American Opera 1911-1954. It appeared on CD in Lawrence Tibbett: From Broadway to Hollywood from the Nimbus Records
Prima Voce series, on Souvenirs From American Operas from the International Record Collectors' Club, and on Lebendige Vergangenheit: Lawrence Tibbett. A recording of the same piece sung by George London appears on George London: Of Gods and Demons from the Sony
Master Works series.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in two acts with a prologue and interlude composed by Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...
to an English language libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
adapted by Kathleen De Jaffa and the composer from Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's 1920 play, The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...
. It premiered on January 7, 1933 at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City with Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
in the title role. Set on an unnamed island in the West Indies, the opera tells the story of African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and ex-convict who escaped to the island, set himself up as its tyrannical "Emperor", and became rich by exploiting the natives. The natives start a revolt against him, and as he tries to escape through the jungle, he is haunted by visions of his past life and the man he had murdered. As the natives close in, he commits suicide using the silver bullet which he had worn around his neck as a good-luck charm. With a score that incorporates elements of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and negro spirituals, The Emperor Jones was the eleventh American opera to premiere at the Met, and has continued to be performed into the 21st century, albeit rarely.
Background
Shortly after becoming General Manager of the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in 1908, Giulio Gatti-Casazza
Giulio Gatti-Casazza
Giulio Gatti-Casazza was an Italian opera manager. He was general manager of La Scala in Milan, Italy and later the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.-Life and career:...
had set a goal of producing new English language operas by American composers. During his time at the Met, the company staged the world premieres of thirteen American operas. However, while the composers of these operas were American, only three of them actually had American subjects—Charles Cadman
Charles Wakefield Cadman
Charles Wakefield Cadman was an American composer.Cadman’s musical education, unlike that of most of his American contemporaries, was completely American. Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he began piano lessons at 13...
's Shanewis (1918), Howard Hanson
Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...
's Merry Mount
Merry Mount
Merry Mount is an opera in three acts by American composer Howard Hanson; its libretto, by Richard Stokes, is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Maypole of Merry Mount", taken from his Twice Told Tales...
(1934), and Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...
's The Emperor Jones.
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...
by American playwright Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
had premiered in 1920 and was immensely popular. After reading the play, Gruenberg approached O'Neill with the idea of making it into an opera and discussed the possibilities with him over a two year period. In 1930 O'Neill gave Gruenberg the rights to adapt the play making any changes he saw fit but refused to have anything to do with creating the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
, despite the urging of the composer. In the end it was compiled by Kathleen De Jaffa in collaboration with Gruenberg. The actual lines were taken almost verbatim from the play. The only two significant changes were the addition of a chanting chorus for the orchestral prelude and interlude, similar to a Greek chorus
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus is a homogenous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action....
, and the death of Emperor Jones. In the play, he is killed by the natives while in the opera he shoots himself with a silver bullet as they are closing in on him. The libretto was finished by 1931, and Gruenberg rented a cottage in Old Orchard, Maine
Old Orchard Beach, Maine
Old Orchard Beach is a town and census-designated place in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 8,856 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, where he composed the opera over a period of fourteen months.
When the vocal score was complete, Gruenberg showed it to the Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber was an Austrian conductor.- Biography :Born in Vienna, Kleiber studied in Prague...
, who at the time was Music Director of the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
and known for championing new works. Kleiber was impressed and offered to give its world premiere in Berlin. Gruenberg planned to spend the next few months in Germany completing the orchestration. In the end, the premiere was postponed. The rise of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
meant that an opera composed by a Jew with a black man as the central character was bound to cause trouble in Germany. (Two years later, Kleiber resigned from his post at the Berlin Opera in protest at the Nazi policy of banning Entartete Musik, "degenerate music", a label applied to virtually all works by Jewish composers). In the meantime, Olin Downes
Olin Downes
Olin Downes was an American music critic.He studied piano, music theory, and music criticism in New York and Boston, and it was in those two cities that he made his career as a music critic—first with the Boston Post and then with the New York Times...
, the critic for the New York Times, had also seen the score and recommended it to Gatti-Casazza, who accepted it for production during the Met's 1932/1933 season.
Performance history
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
in the title role and was also broadcast live on radio. Although both Tibbett and Pearl Besuner used blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
for their roles, the dancers were from Hemsley Winfield
Hemsley Winfield
Hemsley Winfield was an African-American dancer who together with Edna Guy created the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group.-Early years:...
's New Negro Art Theater, with Winfield himself taking the role of the Witch Doctor. Initially the Met had wanted to use white dancers in blackface, but backed down when Tibbett threatened to quit the production unless Winfield and his troupe performed. However, the Met billed the ensemble as the "Hemsley Winfield Ballet" instead of its real name and apart from Winfield did not credit any of the other dancers by name on the playbill. The premiere performance was conducted by Tullio Serafin
Tullio Serafin
-Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire...
and directed by Alexander Sanine. The sets and costumes were designed by Jo Mielziner
Jo Mielziner
Joseph "Jo" Mielziner was an American theatrical scenic, and lighting designer born in Paris, France. He is "the most successful set designer of the Golden era of Broadway", and worked on both stage plays and musicals.-Career:He was the son of artist Leo Mielziner, Sr...
who was 32 at the time and went on to create the stage designs for more than three hundred plays and musicals, including the original productions of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
and Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
. Although it is a two act opera, the Met performed it without an interval for a total running time of one hour and fifteen minutes and presented it as the first half of a double bill with Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
.
Despite the mixed reviews, The Emperor Jones enjoyed a fair amount of initial success and won Gruenberg the Bispham Memorial Medal Award
Bispham Memorial Medal Award
The Bispham Memorial Medal Award was an award for operas written in English which was presented annually by the American Opera Society of Chicago from 1921-1932. The award was named for baritone David Bispham, who was a great proponent of performing opera in English in the United States. It was...
for opera in English. It has continued to be performed into the 21st century (albeit rarely), long after the other American operas premiered in the Gatti-Casazza era had sunk into oblivion. The opera had fifteen performances over two seasons with the Met company which also took it on tour to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, Hartford and Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. Apart from the Met performances, it was also staged in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in 1933 with Tibbett in the title role and was revived again in Chicago in 1946. In Europe it was performed in Amsterdam in 1934 with Jules Bledsoe
Jules Bledsoe
Jules Bledsoe was a once renowned, but now semi-forgotten baritone, and the first African American artist to gain regular employment on Broadway, subsequent to Bert Williams, William Grant Still, Ford Dabney and others....
in the title role followed by performances in Brussels, Vienna, Milan, and London. The Teatro dell'Opera
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat Costanzi Theatre, it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements...
in Rome performed it in 1951, and Michigan Opera Theatre
Michigan Opera Theatre
Michigan Opera Theatre is Michigan's principal opera company. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. Each year it presents an opera and dance season. The company usually presents five operas in their original language with English supertitles and hosts five...
staged a major revival in 1979 with the African American baritone David Arnold in the title role. After its last performance at the Metropolitan Opera House
Metropolitan Opera House (39th St)
The Metropolitan Opera House was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in New York City. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the Metropolitan Opera Company.-History:...
in February 1934, it was not seen again in New York City until 2001 when it was revived by a small company, Operaworks, in a 55 seat theatre using a digitized virtual orchestra in place of musicians. In 2009, the opera was revived in Italy for two performances at the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
with Nmon Ford
Nmon Ford
A featured soloist on the 2010 Grammy Award-winning Transmigrations and the three-time 2006 Grammy Award-winning Songs of Innocence and of Experience , Panamanian-American baritone Nmon Ford enjoyed many successful major debuts this season, most recently with Orchestre National des Pays de la...
in the title role and a full orchestra and chorus conducted by Bruno Bartoletti
Bruno Bartoletti
Bruno Bartoletti is an Italian operatic conductor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory and contemporary works....
.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, January 7, 1933 (Conductor: Tullio Serafin Tullio Serafin -Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire... ) |
|---|---|---|
| Brutus Jones, Emperor Jones, a former Pullman porter and ex-convict | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
Lawrence Tibbett Lawrence Tibbett Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950... |
| Henry Smithers, a Cockney Cockney The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End... trader and Jones's underling |
tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
Marek Windheim |
| Native Woman | soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
Pearl Besuner |
| Congo, The Witch Doctor (dancer) | Hemsley Winfield Hemsley Winfield Hemsley Winfield was an African-American dancer who together with Edna Guy created the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group.-Early years:... |
|
Synopsis
Setting: An unnamed island in the West Indies in the early part of the 20th centuryOrchestral prelude
A chanting chorus calls for the death of Emperor Jones and an insistent drumbeat is heard in the distance.
Act 1
Brutus Jones, an African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
ex-Pullman porter, gambler, and escaped convict had stowed away from the United States to an island in the West Indies several years previously. There, he had set himself up as the island's Emperor and during that time made himself rich at the expense of the natives as well as earning a reputation as a cruel tyrant. He now sits in his "palace" in the final days of his reign. His underling, the cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
trader Smithers, tells Jones that the natives are planning a revolt against him. Full of bravado, Jones tells Smithers of the power which he has held over the island and that he has convinced the natives that he can only be killed by a silver bullet which he wears around his neck on a chain. Nevertheless, he tells Smithers that he is retiring as Emperor, has hidden supplies in the jungle, and plans make his escape to Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
with all the money he has stolen from the islanders.
Orchestral interlude
Again a chanting chorus is heard
Act 2
Jones lies exhausted in the jungle, unable to find any of the supplies he had hidden. As darkness falls, and the drumbeats become louder and more insistent, he is beset by hallucinations from his past life. When he sees a vision of the man he had murdered in a crap gameCraps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
, he starts running through the jungle, tearing off pieces of his uniform until he is left in rags. He then has visions of a convict gang with a guard, and a slave auction with the auctioneer calling Jones to the block. He fires his gun at the phantoms until he has used up all his bullets save the silver one he wears around his neck. In a moment of lucidity, he reflects on his past life and probable fate and sings a negro spiritual, "It's Me, O Lord, Standin' in de Need of Prayer". At dawn, he is still trying to find his way out of the jungle when a witch doctor
Witch doctor
A witch doctor originally referred to a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. It is currently used to refer to healers in some third world regions, who use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine...
appears. He grabs Jones and starts dancing wildly around him. When he is surrounded by the soldiers and natives who have been hunting him, Jones realizes that all is lost, puts the silver bullet into his gun, places the gun against his head and fires. Smithers stands over the dead Emperor and utters the final words of the opera: "Dead as an 'erring. Well, Gor blimey, yer died in a grand style any'ow." The curtain falls as the drumbeats fade and the natives carry off Jones's body.
Recordings
There are no complete commercial recordings of The Emperor Jones. The most famous piece from the opera, "It's Me, O Lord, Standin' in de Need of Prayer", was recorded on 19 January 1934 by Lawrence Tibbett and released by Victor Records (Victor 7959, CS 81087-2) shortly after the premiere. Tibbett's recording was later re-issued on LPLP record
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
by New World Records
New World Records
New World Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in American music. The label was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to produce a 100 disc anthology covering 200 years of American music....
in Toward an American Opera 1911-1954. It appeared on CD in Lawrence Tibbett: From Broadway to Hollywood from the Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh...
Prima Voce series, on Souvenirs From American Operas from the International Record Collectors' Club, and on Lebendige Vergangenheit: Lawrence Tibbett. A recording of the same piece sung by George London appears on George London: Of Gods and Demons from the Sony
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
Master Works series.
Sources
- Ewen, David (1944/2007). "Gruenberg", Music for the Millions - The Encyclopedia of Musical Masterpieces. Read Books. ISBN 140673926X (originally published in 1944 by Arco Publishing Company)
- Gauss, Rebecca B. (1994). "O'Neill, Gruenberg and The Emperor Jones". The Eugene O'Neill Review, Volume 18, Nos. 1 & 2, Spring/Fall 1994. ISSN 1040-9483
- Hipsher, Edward Ellsworth. American Opera and Its Composers. Theodore Presser CompanyTheodore Presser CompanyThe Theodore Presser Company is an American music publishing and distribution company located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and formerly based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest continuing music publisher in the United States.-Theodore Presser:...
(1934) - Hurwitt, Elliott S. (2004) "New Negro Art Theater" in Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman (eds.) Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Vol. 2, p. 895. Routledge ISBN 157958389X
- Il Resto del CarlinoIl Resto del Carlinoil Resto del Carlino is an Italian local newspaper based in Bologna, and is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy.Its rather evocative name means "the change you get from a Carlino," the smallest part of the Papal bajocco, which was legal tender at the time, when a sheet of local news was given out...
(January 21, 2009). "Prima assoluta sul palco delle Muse, Venerdì arriva 'The emperor Jones'" - Kirk, Elise Kuhl (2001). American Opera. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252026233
- Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
Archives. The Emperor Jones. MetOpera Database - Nash, Joe (2001). "Pioneers in Negro Concert Dance 1931-1937". PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
- Nettles, Darryl Glenn (2003). African American Concert Singers Before 1950. McFarland. ISBN 0786414677
- Pegolotti, James A. (2003). Deems Taylor: A Biography. UPNE. ISBN 1555535879
- Shapiro, Marjorie Mackay (1994). "A Strange Case: Louis Gruenberg's Forgotten 'Great American Opera'—The Emperor Jones" in John Louis DiGaetani, Josef P. Sirefman (eds.) Opera and the Golden West: The Past, Present, and Future of Opera in the U.S.A., pp. 233–243. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0838635199
- Sturm, George (1981) "Look Back In Anger: The Strange Case Of Louis Gruenberg", MadAminA!. Music Associates of America
- Time Magazine (May 23, 1932). "Native Opera"
- Time Magazine (January 16, 1933). "O'Neill into Opera"
- Tommasini, AnthonyAnthony Tommasini-Early years:Tommasini was born in Brooklyn around 1948 and raised on Long Island. He was admitted to Oberlin College's Conservatory of Music, but chose to matriculate at Yale University in order to obtain a broader liberal arts education...
(February 16, 2001). "The Emperor Jones". New York Times
External links
- Audio clip: "It's Me, O Lord, Standin' in de Need of Prayer" sung by Lawrence Tibbett from the Metropolitan Opera's website. It can also be accessed from their Sounds of The Met page (track 55).
- Lawrence Tibbett as Emperor Jones in Act 1 photograph from the Metropolitan Opera Archives
- Lawrence Tibbett in his Act 2 costume on the cover of Time Magazine, January 16, 1933
- Louis Gruenberg: The Emperor Jones on G. SchirmerG. SchirmerG. Schirmer Inc. is an American classical music publishing company based in New York City, founded in 1861. It publishes sheet music for sale and rental, and represents some well-known European music publishers in North America, such as the Italian Ricordi, Music Sales Affiliates ChesterNovello,...
music publishers with information on the orchestration
