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[[images - black & white portrait photograph of Scott Joplin]]

[[images - black & white photograph of a portion of the sheet music cover of one of Joplin's compositions]]  [[remainder of the cover is shown on the next page]]
[[caption]]The sheet-music cover of one of Joplin's rags and the composer, circa 1911, the year he finished his opera "Treemonisha," which will have its first New York performance this week with Caren Balthrop and Cora Johnson (inset) singing and dancing in it.[[/caption]]

SCOTT JOPLIN'S TREEMONISHA: The Story

In 1866, just after the close of the Civil War (18 years before the action begins), Ned and Monisha, Ned's wife, both former slaves, found a baby girl abandoned under a great tree that stood before their cabin. They took her in, and first named her Monisha, but when the youngster displayed a special fondness for playing under the tree where she was found, they renamed her Treemonisha. Ned and Monisha dreamed of educating the child so that when she grew up she could teach the people around them to aspire to something better and higher than the superstition and conjuring that ruled the other former-slaves' lives. When Treemonisha was seven, the couple arranged to work for a white family in the neighborhood in exchange for lessons for Treemonisha from the lady of the house.

As the action beings, Treemonisha, now 18, is the only educated person in her settlement. She immediately comes into conflict with the conjurer Zodzetrick, the "goofer dus' man" who tries to sell her his big bag o'luck. Treemonisha will have nothing to do with Zodzetrik and his cohorts Luddud and Simon, who consider her a threat to their power. The conjurers kidnap Treemonisha, and just as they are about to hurl her into a monstrous wasps' nest, her friend Remus disguised as a devil, rescues her and brings her home. As Treemonisha and Remus head for home, they meet some workers in a cotton field who direct them on their way, and at the sound of the dinner horn, all fling themselves into the ebullient "Aunt Dinah Has Blowed de Horn."

Amid the jubilation of Treemonisha's return, there is a general outcry for vengeance towards her captors. But Treemonisha silences the people with the telling words "You will do evil if you strike them," and asks that the conjurers be forgiven. Because everyone looks up to Treemonisha for her superior judgement, the villains are reluctantly forgiven and set free. The experience has taught the people that they can no longer allow themselves to be victimized by their own ignorance, and ask Treemonisha to be their leader. When she expresses doubts whether the men would follow a woman's guidance, she is fervently assured that they would, and she accepts. Everyone celebrates by singing and dancing "A Real Slow Drag" with its triumphant refrain "Marching onward, marching onward..."

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