SAINT-GEORGES: THE KNIGHT

A New Musical by James A. Goins

 

​Prologue

Agen, France, December 31, 1826. Old Benedictine Bologne lies near death, attended by her daughter Sophia and her great-grandson Joseph, who struggles to play an old violin manuscript. Benedictine chastises him, insisting that if he cannot honor Mozart, he cannot honor the hand of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges — her brother, a man history has nearly erased.

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As memory overtakes her, the bedroom dissolves into the past. Through the opening number, “Chevalier,” Benedictine and the company introduce Saint-Georges as a boy born on an island of cane, denied full recognition by law, yet destined to master music, fencing, society, and war. Benedictine’s dying mission is clear: before she leaves the world, she must pass on the truth of who he was and restore the name history tried to misplace.

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Act I

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Act I begins in Guadeloupe, 1745, on the plantation of George Bologne, a white planter whose household is built on love, contradiction, and moral compromise. His wife Elisabeth and Anne Nanon, the enslaved woman carrying George’s child, share an uneasy but genuine bond. When Nanon gives birth to a son on Christmas Day, George names him Joseph Bologne and vows, in blood, that the boy will live free in France.

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Young Joseph grows among cane fields, plantation labor, music, and danger. Nanon teaches him to listen to the earth, the trees, and the old truths that cannot be written in legal documents. George teaches him another lesson: the world will judge him by color, and therefore he must become undeniable. Joseph begins to understand that freedom promised by others is fragile, and he must forge something stronger within himself.

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The family’s position collapses after George confronts Le Vanier, a hostile relative whose racism and greed threaten them all. A tavern duel leaves Le Vanier fatally injured after a fall, and George is condemned despite the uncertainty of the death. Elisabeth quickly organizes the family’s escape to France. Before leaving, Joseph entrusts his music to a young Benedictine, who has already become the keeper of his broken string, his pages, and eventually his legacy.

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In France, Joseph trains as a fencer under La Boëssière while the bureaucrat Poncet de la Grave quietly begins tracking free people of color in his ledgers. Joseph rises rapidly, but Poncet sees his excellence not as triumph, but as a threat. Act I culminates in a public fencing match against Picard at the Tuileries. Joseph wins decisively before King Louis XV, who appoints him to the Gendarmes du Roi, making him a Chevalier of the Guard. Joseph appears to have won a place in France — but Poncet closes his ledger, already recalculating.

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Act II

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Act II follows Joseph’s ascent through Parisian society, music, romance, and political danger. Now celebrated as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joseph moves through salons, concert halls, Versailles, and the circles of power. He encounters La Guimard, who warns him that Paris runs on favors, beds, debts, and influence. When Joseph refuses her offer, she marks the insult as a debt to be collected later.

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Joseph forms a difficult friendship with Mozart, whose envy and admiration reveal the burden both men carry in different ways. Joseph also falls in love with Marie-Joseph de Montalembert, an intelligent married woman trapped by law and social order. Their love leads to devastating loss when her husband’s power destroys their child, exposing the limits of Joseph’s lifelong belief that excellence can protect what matters most.

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Joseph’s professional triumphs are also blocked. Though supremely qualified to lead the Paris Opéra, he is denied the directorship after leading singers refuse to be governed by a Black man. La Guimard returns to cash in the old debt, helping ensure his defeat. Joseph withdraws with dignity, but the theft is clear: he has been made to watch exclusion arrive slowly enough that no single person has to own the crime.

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Through Philippe, Duke of Orléans, Joseph joins the abolitionist cause and later travels to London, where he meets Chevalière d’Éon, William Wilberforce, and John Wilkes. He begins to understand that excellence may open doors, but it does not walk the next person through. During the French Revolution, he commands the Légion Saint-Georges, France’s first all-Black regiment, turning his father’s private promise of freedom into a public march. Yet the Revolution also betrays him through suspicion, paperwork, and political convenience.

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As Joseph loses friends, family, status, and health, Benedictine continues to preserve what he fears will vanish. In 1799, near death, Joseph gives her his manuscripts. Years later, in 1826, Old Benedictine reveals the locked chest at her bedside: stacks of his music, saved from erasure. She sends her great-grandson Joseph to America with the command to play the music until he plays it correctly — not as performance only, but as remembrance.

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The musical ends as Grandson Joseph plays the Chevalier motif. The adult Saint-Georges appears with a second violin, joining him in counterpoint. The erased man and the descendant meet through music. Then Saint-Georges fades, leaving the younger Joseph alone with the manuscript, finally playing with understanding.

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Blackout.

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