Margaret Garner: Bringing Black History to Life as Opera

If you were a slave, a woman with a life owned outright by someone else; if you had no rights and no possibilities and knew destiny held for your children that same miserable fate, what would you do? Would you accept slavery as inevitable; turn a blind eye, knowing you had no choice but to let your offspring suffer every day of their lives?

Would you run away? Would you make the choice: freedom and death over slavery and life, and grant your children the only guarantee you had of a different outcome?

Margaret Garner had lived as a slave and slipped through a window of opportunity that brought her children to freedom; but when slave catchers threatened that existence, she made a decision. Death was the next best thing to freedom.

With her safe house surrounded by slave catchers and policemen, Margaret injured her four children with a butcher knife. Caught before she could finish the task, she was able to release one daughter from a life of slavery.

What would you do?

Not Just an Opera-

If you know opera, you know the mournful voices, the clasical music, the foreign dialog ( hopefully subtitled for your greater comprehension); but in 2005 the premier of 'Margaret Garner' challenged those norms. As an English language, American composed opera about a runaway slave, the collaboration of the Michigan Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Toni Morrison and Composor Richard Danielpour brought to life a colorful opera unlike any that had gone before.

Those familiar with Toni Morrison's novel, 'Beloved,' may already realize it was loosely based on the 1856 true story of Margaret Garner, whose brief freedom in Cincinnati, Ohio was cut short when slave catchers came to retrieve her, along with her husband and children. Others who had escaped with Garner from the Maplewood Farm, in Boone County, Kentucky made it to Canada without getting caught. Rather than allow her children to be returned to slavery, Margaret made what she believed to be the only righteous decision; she decided to take their lives but succeeded in killing one daughter.

Reality Opera?-

'Margaret Garner' was Black history brought to life in a new way, with arias, choral arrangements and grand music comparable to any great opera. The work presented Margaret's life as a slave, her escape and her journey to Ohio. The audience became innocent bystanders to her tragic choice: alive and enslaved or dead and free?

The audience sat through the surrealism of a trial that convicted her not of murdering her daughter, but of violating fugitive slave laws and a conviction that ultimately forced her return to the south. As documented by Cincinnati newspapers of the time, thousands attended the trial. Many more lined the streets. The city deputized 500 extra men to keep the peace during that time.

Mezzo soprano, Denyce Graves brought Margaret's character to life. In Cincinnati, the acoustically perfect Music Hall resonated with the sound of her despair. The audience burdened by today's standards, puzzled over the charges for which Margaret was tried, escape from slavery rather than the taking of a life.

Record crowds filled Cincinnati's Music Hall for every performance of the first and only local run of 'Margaret Garner.' As with any tragic opera, many in the audience walked away with the serene look of awe at attending a unique musical work, a tragic story so skillfully rendered. Many eyes bore the unanswerable question, 'If I were Margaret Garner; if I had that decision to make, what would I do?'

Black History Month-

Margaret Garner's story is a classic example of why we honor Black History Month. There is so much Black history only a few have been taught.

Her escape and conviction are memorialized by a double sided plaque in Covington, Kentucky close to where Garner and her party are said to have walked to Ohio across a frozen river. Local newspapers of the followed the story, as does "Slave Mother: A Tale of Ohio," a poem by Frances Harper.

Margaret's story was the inspiration behind 'The Modern Medea,' an 1867 painting by Kentucky artist, Thomas Satterwhite Noble. The painting, owned by Cincinnati based Proctor and Gamble, was donated to The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center where it remains on display.

Sources:

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

"Margaret Garner" Opera program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Garner