Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 24 January 2018
Love and hot sauce: New Orleans

revives 1894 Tabasco opera

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — sic conservatory in Leipzig, arrested and took back
Love, hate and hot sauce Germany, a decade after his music. When asked
are themes of a 19th cen- W.S. Gilbert, and probably about a revival in the early
tury comic opera being studied under some of 1900s, Chadwick — who
produced this week as a the same masters, Mauf- had a composition then
kickoff to New Orleans' fray said. Chadwick was being performed by the
300th anniversary. It's also commissioned to write the New York Philharmonic un-
the 150th anniversary for Tabasco opera in 1893 by der Gustav Mahler — de-
Tabasco sauce and the a corps of well-to-do Army clined, writing that comic
In this Jan. 22, 2018 photo, one-eighth-ounce bottle of Tabasco
sauce, its label a tiny copy of the poster for "Tabasco: A Bur- New Orleans Opera's 75th. cadets in Boston. The ca- opera was no longer his
lesque Opera", stands on a carton of bottles to be given as sou- "Tabasco: a Burlesque Op- dets performed it in Janu- style, according to Mauf-
venirs of the opera during performances at Le Petit Theatre in era" had been stuck in an ary 1894 as a fundraiser, fray.
New Orleans. attic for more than a cen- winning critical notice for Mauffray tried for years to
tury when conductor Paul the shapely, clean-shaven locate the opera. In 2012,
Mauffray found a program legs of the young men act- he got access to a box
from its 1894 tour in ar- ing women's parts. that Chadwick's descen-
chives for the opera com- It went on to more than 40 dants were sending to be
pany and its predecessors. professional performances archived. He found instru-
"At first I thought it couldn't in New York. "This time, the mental parts and three dif-
be Tabasco — that Tabas- reviewers said it sounded ferent scripts. Reconstruc-
co hadn't been around so much better when the tion took "a lot of detective
that long," Mauffray said. women's parts were sung work and piecework and
But an official history of by women," Mauffray said. bits and pieces had to be
McIlhenny Co., which About the same time, the rewritten," Mauffray said.
makes the sauce, showed great Antonin Dvorak, then The show is directed by
that Tabasco predated director of the National Pacific Opera Project di-
the opera by 26 years, and Conservatory of Music of rector Josh Shaw, who's
that McIlhenny had spon- America in New York, pre- known for reimagining
sored the original tour. sented Chadwick with a Mozart's "Escape from the
The Tabasco-making com- national composition prize Seraglio" as a "Star Trek"
pany underwrote the pro- for one of his symphonies. episode and for Puccini's
duction running Thursday Impresario Thomas Q. Sea- "La Boheme: AKA 'The Hip-
to Sunday. brook acquired touring sters.'"
Composer George White- rights for "Tabasco" and The opera's wacky plot
field Chadwick was well asked McIlhenny's permis- involves traders, a harem
known in his day, Mauffray sion to use its trademark. girl named Fatima and
said, and if "Tabasco" had John Avery McIlhenny, el- her older counterpart Has-
its due, "it would be the dest son of the hot sauce's beena, a sultan obsessed
founding cornerstone of creator, agreed, and pro- with spicy food, and Den-
our American history in the vided free samples for the nis O'Grady, a drunk who
opera. It was not just some audience. impersonates a French
little show that was done "As far as I know, that's the chef. A bottle of Tabasco
here once. It was the most earliest we gave out min- saves O'Grady's life, trader
popular American opera iature bottles," company Marco falls for Fatima, and
from the pre-20th century." historian Shane Bernard trader Lola for O'Grady.
Opera has been a big part said. There's also a boatload of
of New Orleans' social and "We're still making those dancing girls and a plot to
musical scene going back minis today," company assassinate the sultan by
to the late 1700s. Mauffray spokesman Tony Simmons putting a bomb in a fancy
was trying to learn more of said. "I think we did about chest he believes to hold
its history when he found 30 million of them in 2017." Tabasco.
the program in a box in The show played in at least The plot may seem out-
2009. 48 cities, from Dallas to landish to modern au-
This opera might be rooted Rhode Island, when Chad- diences, but a souvenir
in the comical genre that wick realized he wasn't some spectators will get
brought fame to the British getting royalties, Mauffray at the show has withstood
duo Gilbert and Sullivan. said. the test of time: mini bot-
Chadwick attended a mu- Chadwick had Seabrook tles of Tabasco.q

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