Duke Ellington's Only Opera Coming To Chicago

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 21, 2014 5:35PM

Listening to Duke Ellington is, of course, a fine way to celebrate Black History Month. But we can't imagine why you'd limit yourself to listening to him only in February. A musical genius whose career stretched over fifty years, he composed at least 3,000 songs and hundreds of other musical pieces. There isn't a week that goes by that a fresh listening of a track or two from Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band or The Far East Suite (one of our favorites) fails to yield some earful discovery.

Ellington was so prolific that at the time of his death in 1974 he left behind countless unfinished works, including an opera that he'd been tinkering with off and on since 1962. Queenie Pie, with a libretto by Betty McGettigan, was originally conceived as an opera for television. Perhaps it would have been something like his musical "panorama" A Drum is a Woman, which aired in May 1957 as an episode of The United States Steel Hour. However, although Ellington more or less completed several of the opera's sections, Queenie Pie was never really finished until after his death. His son Mercer and a team of collaborators staged the first production in 1986.

Something about it must have nagged at him; he did work on it for over a decade after all. The opera's story is inspired by the life of Madam C. J. Walker. Born into poverty in Mississippi, through hard work and sheer determination she eventually became a beautician and entrepreneur. And multi-millionaire. Walker's success story undoubtedly inspired him. But typically for Ellington, the opera only uses her life as a launching pad for some far out ideas—the second half details Queenie Pie's voyage to a mystical island in search of an elixir of “everlasting anythingness.”

While, as we'd be the first to admit, narrative was never Ellington's strong suit, any chance to hear his music with a full jazz orchestra should not be missed. And we've never been disappointed by Chicago Opera Theater, a company that takes chances in its choice of material and always stages it beautifully. Their production of Queenie Pie promises to be a must-see.

Queenie Play has four performances at the Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph: Feb. 15, Feb. 21, Feb. 23, and March 5