Live from Duchamp Opera House
New concert series slated for historic venue
Duchamp Opera House in St. Martinville, built in 1830, is the oldest opera house in the country, and beginning this fall, live music will once again return to this beloved historic space.
I’m planning a new concert series for the downtown landmark called Live from Duchamp Opera House. The goal of the concert series is to showcase the rich musical heritage of our parish, and to open up a different type of venue for audiences who are eager to experience music in an intimate theatre-style setting.
Amis du Teche will kick things off with a concert on Sunday, October 6th. The members of this young band, all of whom have roots in St. Martin Parish, represent the heartbeat of today’s Cajun music scene, and their concert at the opera house will cap off a year of strong performances around the country and beyond. In 2024 they have appeared at the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, South by Southwest in Austin, the Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge and Congrès Mondial in Nova Scotia.
The idea for the concert series was hatched just after midnight, roaming through the opera house alone on the coldest night of last winter. There are places in Louisiana, but especially in St. Martin Parish, where the division between past and present is so thin you can step outside of time, and the opera house is one of those places. Walking up the stairs to the second floor, me and my echoing footsteps, across the grand salon and out onto the balcony, I tried to imagine what it must have sounded like when in 1906 the St. Martinville Brass Band stood on that same balcony and serenaded downtown St. Martinville as church-goers exited St. Martin de Tours after attending High Mass. I closed my eyes and could almost hear faint trumpets.
I half-wondered if the sounds had seeped into the bricks of the place. Don’t sacred spaces hold memories like that? That’s when the idea struck. Let’s bring live music back. And so that’s what I have been setting in motion this year, working with Duchamp Opera House owner Mike LeBlanc, the City of St. Martinville, the St. Martinville Chamber of Commerce, and St. Martin Parish Tourism, not to mention the many local musicians who have been so generous toward me with their time.
The second concert in the series, scheduled for Sunday, December 8th, will be a celebration of three iconic Cajun instruments—the fiddle, the accordion and the triangle. Full details will be announced at a later date, but the program for the concert will include Chris Reed, a singer-songwriter in Grand Bois, performing original songs on the accordion. We will have a show-and-tell with the instruments, and we will also be featuring storytelling and conversation in French with older members of the community.
What I began to realize as I was putting these shows together is that this type of setting opens up performance opportunities that don’t exist in other music venues in the parish today. I don’t know if you have ever sat close to an accordion as it’s being played, but to hear the sound of it, to really hear it, and to understand how it operates, gives you a whole new appreciation for the music.
Additional concerts are in the works for spring and summer of next year. For all of the concert dates, doors will open at 2:00 and concert-goers will have the opportunity to take in the sweeping views of downtown St. Martinville from the second floor of the opera house while enjoying a drink and light snacks. Concerts will begin at 2:30. Theatre-style seating will be provided for up to one hundred concert-goers. General admission tickets are twenty dollars per person. I imagine some people will dress up for the occasion, but I encourage people to come however they feel comfortable.
The nineteenth-century opera house is an ideal setting for performing and listening to music. It was built for music, after all, and the space carries a legacy of celebration. An article appearing in the February 27,1895 edition of the Times-Picayune contains one of my favorite descriptions of the venerable building. At a “magnificent masked ball” on Mardi Gras of that year, at 8:30 PM, the masked king, flanked by his royal attendants, his identity cloaked in mystery, entered the Duchamp Opera House. “To make room for his entrance two cordons of maskers, holding silk-covered ropes, formed a guard to make way among the crowd. Never before in the history of this little city has the capacity of the opera house been thus tested. Young and old, irrespective of sex, crowded upon each other in eager expectation.” Who would not want to have been there?
It’s my hope that this historic building and this concert series will serve as vehicles for carrying our musical traditions forward. My long-term vision is to have a live radio broadcast of the concerts, extending the reach of the music beyond the brick walls of the opera house itself. The Liberty Theater in Eunice is a good model in this respect. It should also be noted that the Grand Ole Opry began as a radio broadcast almost one hundred years ago. In an age when buildings tend more and more to the same colors and shapes, unique spaces like the opera house, so richly filled with the echoes of history, carry more and more meaning. And what more fitting celebration of such a space than to use it, to fill it with music?
Come be a part of this exciting revitalization. Tickets for the first two concerts go on sale August 14th. Support for the concert series is being provided by the St. Martinville Chamber of Commerce and the St. Martin Parish Tourism Commission. Their generous support helps keep tickets affordable to the public. Opportunities for sponsorship of upcoming concerts are available. All inquiries regarding the concert series can be addressed to jude@peacefulhabits.com.