| The name "Selika"is derived
from the title character in the opera "L'Africaine" (The
African Woman) by the French-Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791-1864). This opera, his last, was first produced in 1865 in
Paris, and tells the story of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da
Gama, who sailed around the southern tip of the African
continent in an attempt to find a trade route to India in the 17th
century. In the opera, da Gama rescues an African woman from the
Mozambique Channel, adjacent to the island of Madagascar. Her
name is Selika, and they both fall in love.
Vasco, however, is already engaged to a Portuguese woman named
Ines, who is on shipboard, and is rather ticked off about the
situation, as you may imagine. The tables are turned in Act 3 when
da Gama is himself shipwrecked, captured by the indigineous people
of what is now the Malagasy Republic, brought to trial and
sentenced to death along with Ines and his surviving crew; but
then Selika comes to the rescue. Identifiying
herself as the Queen of those realms, with an impassioned plea to
the head African in charge (sorry), she saves da Gama by claiming
that they were married. She doesn't save Ines or the sailors, who
are supposedly dragged off to death amid the posionous fragrances of
the leaves of a particular poison tree, the machineel. She doesn't
tell Vasco that small fact, though. However, while Selika and Vasco enjoy each other's company
(singing merrily along), and while he still wonders why he hasn't
seen Ines around the island, Ines is saved from death by a fellow
named Nelusko (who has been pining for the love of Selika), and in order to save Vasco's life and aid
him in attaining his desired goal (getting back to Portugal) begs
Nelusko not to let Vasco know that she is still alive. For some
reason, he complies, even though by getting rid of Vasco he could
have Selika all to himself. When another Portuguese ship
comes after Vasco, Nelusko, who does not wish to have his island
paradise sullied by another European invasion, rallies the
troops, boards the ship and kills most of the Portuguese, singing
lustily as he does so. Nelusko finally decides to get rid of Vasco
by bringing Ines back on the scene. Once he brings Ines and Vasco
together, he reasons, they'll go back to Portugal and leave both he
and Selika alone. Therefore, when Ines
reappears in Act 5 where she and Selika
actually meet for the first time, it is rather a shock. In the end,
Vasco and Ines return to Portugal, Selika
spurns Nelusko, and then takes a long nap under the machineel tree.
After a long search for her, Nelusko finds her lying under the tree,
close to death. He sings a duet with her declaiming his love for her
(essentially "life has no meaning for me without you, therefore I
will end it all"), and kills himself. Curtain.</font style>
Although I have treated it in a rather flippant manner,
"L'Africaine" was (and is) a very effective piece of work; the
African-American coloraturas Shirley Verrett and Jessye
Norman have both sang the role of Selika,
Ms. Verrett singing alongside Placido Domingo as Vasco almost
thirty years ago. The opera itself was a great sensation in its day
(although very rarely heard now), and was very popular. Little black
baby girls in New Orleans were named for the lead character
in the opera, and from there, the name spread throughout black
America; a racehorse that won the Kentucky Derby in 1890 or
thereabouts was named Selika, and there was
an African-American singer active in the closing years of the 19th
Century and early 20th Century named Madame Selika. Marie Selika
Smith Williams (1850-1937) was one of the leading
African-American professional singers during this period; she and
her husband, S.W. Williams, travelled about the country
giving concerts--solos and duets of operatic selections as well as
popular tunes--for many years. For information on Madame Selika, see
the Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians,
by Eileen Southern. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982).
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