Long Beach Opera
Please see http://www.longbeachopera.org/2014-season/queenie-pie
John Malveaux
John Malveaux
Long Beach Opera
Queenie Pie is Duke Ellington’s only opera and one of his
fairly unknown and rarely performed works. It blends big band sound and
clever lyrics with the musical styles of opera, jazz, and musical
theater. The title character, Queenie Pie, was inspired by the life of
Madam C. J. Walker, the first female, African-American self-made
millionaire, who developed and sold a line of hair and beauty products
through innovative mail orders and door-to-door sales. Interested in the
opera genre since the 1940s, Ellington started composing Queenie Pie
in 1962, when he received a commission from the New York public TV
station WNET. In collaboration with librettist Betty McGettigan, he
worked on the opera until his death in 1974, but the work remained
unfinished. Since then, different versions have been produced (1986 in
Philadelphia and Washington, DC; 1993 in Brooklyn; 2008 by the Oakland
Opera Theater; and in 2009 at the University of Texas, Austin).
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