LCV Winter 2013-14 - (Page 29)
Capitals of Europe outside France."
At home, attendance at the opera reflected the diversity of the
city's inhabitants. The French were partial to the company at the
Théâtre d'Orléans in the Vieux Carré while the Americans flocked
to the St. Charles Theater. Each company offered segregated
seating for free people of color: in 1820, white patrons of the
French opera house could purchase a season subscription for sixty
dollars while gens de coleur libres paid fifty for their section. The
musicians were predominantly European immigrants but also
included Creoles of mixed European and African ancestry as well
as American carpetbaggers.
Concert music also flourished in halls offering separate seating
for whites, free people of color and slaves. Among the city's many
symphonic offerings there was the Negro Philharmonic Society, a
full orchestra founded by black classical musicians. These were
mostly French-speaking Creoles like Edmond Dédé, a violinist and
composer who attended the Paris Conservatory and was part of a
deep pedagogical tradition that included European and Creoles
teachers and students.
Nearly every travel account of
nineteenth-century New Orleans testifies to
the city's penchant for ballroom dance.
William C.C. Claiborne, the first American
governor, recoiled at the countless private
dances, subscription dances, society balls,
public dances and taxi dances where New
Orleanians intermingled. After one month in
the city, the governor wrote to Secretary of
State James Madison and apologized for
"calling your attention to the balls of New
Orleans, but I do assure you, sir, they occupy
much of the public mind."
Ballrooms were spaces where racial,
ethnic, religious and national identities were
negotiated to the tunes of the latest
contredanses. For example, in his
monumental book Music of New Orleans: The
Formative Years, historian Henry Kmen
recounted a ball soon after the Louisiana
Purchase where antagonisms between
Americans, Creoles and the French ancienne
population played out on the dance floor:
"The Americans were agitating for the
Virginia reel and the jig in place of the waltz
and cotillion. To prevent just this the
Creoles, for their part, turned out in force.
Both sides carried arms to the conflict...
Addressing the angry Americans, a [Creole
woman] cried: 'We have been Spanish for
thirty years and the Spaniards never forced
us to dance the fandango; neither do we
want to dance the reel or jig.'"
The municipal authorities ruled that
there should be a set order of two French
quadrilles, one English quadrille and one
waltz in turn, while Governor Claiborne
ordered that an officer and fifteen troops be
present at every public ball.
There were also "quadroon" balls, where
elite white men danced with Creole women
as a preface to concubine arrangements
known as plaçage, and "colored" balls that
were theoretically restricted to blacks but
were continually crashed by whites. A
weekly ballroom schedule might include a night for whites only,
another for white men and Creole women, and a third for free
colored only, but the ordinances enacted to maintain these
boundaries were virtually ignored. The Globe Ballroom was closed
in 1855 for allowing "tricolor" balls, and police raiding a free
colored ball in 1834 found that two-thirds of the men they
arrested were slaves.
The echoes of these musical pasts cannot be fully measured in
the jazz, brass band, blues and funk of latter-day New Orleans.
These are the styles that come to mind today when we ask
ourselves "What is New Orleans?" But for patrons at the Théâtre
d'Orléans or the Globe Ballroom, just as for spectators at Congo
Square, the city's musical reputation was built on the sheer
plenitude of offerings and their freedom of accessibility. There was
little consensus as to what "New Orleans is..."
--------------------------------
Matt Sakakeeny, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of music at Tulane University in New
Orleans. His book, Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans, was published
in 2013 by Duke University Press.
Winter 2013-14 * LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 29
http://www.loewshotels.com/en/New-Orleans-Hotel?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=New_Orleans_Brand_Exact&utm_content=New_Orleans_Hotel&utm_term=loews_hotel_new_orleans
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LCV Winter 2013-14
LCV Winter 2013-14
https://www.nxtbook.com/leh/lcvwinter13/lcvwinter13
https://www.nxtbook.com/leh/lcvspring2013/lcvspring2013
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com