When singer/actress Manna K. Jones was selected by Union Avenue Opera to portray Josephine Baker in the eponymous one-act, one-woman opera, she noticed something spectacular as she shared the news.
“The thing that struck me over and over again is that of all the people I told, no one said, ‘who is that,’ or ‘I’m not sure who that is,” Jones said.
The phenomenon would be expected if she was telling St. Louis natives or those with strong connections to the city. But the New York-based performer was in conversation with people from different regions and different generations – and every one of them was aware of Baker and her global influence.
“She is timeless in the canon of history,” said Jones. “When you say that name there is a resonance. Even after all of these years – the fifty years that she has been gone.”
Jones began her two weekend run as the lone star of the production, which is double billed with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci on Friday. It continues through August 2.
There is pressure to portray an international treasure, but there is also a sense of pride.
“It’s an honor to be able to bring Josephine back home,” Jones said. “She is an icon that people know for her artistry, but a lot of people don’t know she was born in St. Louis. St. Louis is where she landed on this earth – and spent the first 19 years of her life.”
“Josephine” takes place at the end of her life. She is being interviewed for a magazine article that also sheds light on her world beyond the bright lights of the stage.
“There’s a performative side that the artists have to portray to the audience to get them to appreciate what it is they are doing,” said Kathryn Frady, director of “Josephine. “But it can also be a very lonely life, because you are not supposed to share all of the dark sides – the racism and things like that – that’s not what the audience wants to hear.”
A recurring line in the opera that reminds the audience of her St. Louis roots.
“I am thrilled for the opportunity to work on this piece and to help present her in a way that we hope is authentic to who she was – and who she was to St. Louis,” Frady said. “It’s a tour de force for the soprano who is singing the role.”
Jones pours every fiber of her being into the emotionally charged performance – and carries Tom Cipullo’s opera with the power of a robust cast.
Frady sang the praises of Jones and her ability to command the audience’s attention.
“Because this is a one-woman show taking place in one location – telling us about her life versus showing it – we’ve spent a lot of time, myself and Manna, trying to bring out Josephine’s style, charm and charisma,” Frady said. “Manna is doing an excellent job and I think audiences will be pleased.”
Though she lived an epic life – both as a part of and beyond the gaze of entertainment and global popular culture – as a singer, dancer, actress, activist and spy, some might question opera as the proper medium to tell her story.
“I think for a life as large and a career as lasting as hers, opera is just the right situation musically and dramatically for,” Jones said.
Frady agrees.
“I think she made her Paris premiere in an opera,” said Frady. “I definitely hear the classical side of her style and singing when I listen to recordings of her.”
Baker was the personification of rising beyond one’s circumstance. She left St. Louis for France with ambitions to become a star. She left this world as so much more – and left it better than when she arrived nearly 120 years ago. Her influence in her adopted city of Paris was made clear in 2021 when she became the first Black woman to receive a space at the Panthéon – the secular temple to the “great men” of the French Republic.
“In the opera, she says, ‘This is what I left in St. Louis. This is what I left in America’ – and unfortunately, America has not changed enough,” Frady said. “She used her art and her position to speak out – to speak out in a loving way, but to speak out – I think that is really a wonderful thing to learn from her.”
Union Avenue’s presentation of “Josephine” and Pagliacci will continue through August 2 at Union Avenue Opera, 733 N. Union Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108. For tickets and showtimes, visit unionavenueopera.org or call 314. 361.2881.
Living It content is produced with funding by the ARPA for the Arts grants program in partnership with the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis and the Community Development Administration.
