Flash forward to the present and we find Brennan standing beneath the marquee of Cité des Arts where her latest accomplishment is spelled out: Exile. It’s a staged oratorio, which she penned and recently produced with Gospel music, on the last hours and death of Napoleon. She has been awarded a French Chevalier, Order of Arts and Letters, for this and other efforts.

She worked on the project “on-and-off for nineteen years. It started when a Baton Rouge dentist and composer, named Valerian Smith, attended one of our tour productions, in Baker, Louisiana, of Simply Langston (the life and poetry of Langston Hughes). Valerian asked me that night if I’d be willing to take a look at something he was working on. I did, I loved it and produced it as a musical oratorio at Festival International de Louisiane. That was the original of Exile.”

Valerian Smith died a few months later. Shortly before he died he asked Brennan to promise not to let this piece die, to get it back on stage and, if possible back to France where he had first been inspired to write it.

“I spent years looking for a ‘real writer’, and finally wrote it myself. After nineteen years, I kept part of that promise this summer.

“A couple weeks after he died I did take the tape of the original Festival International performance with me to France. I took it to Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides in Paris. As the basilica was closed for renovations I had to settle for playing it outside on the steps as gentle snow fell.  Some day I still hope to take the full production to France and possibly present it at Fontainebleau.”

But in the meanwhile in her “spare time” she is an active Rotarian. And a world traveler with recent trips to Ireland and France. “Don’t forget Milwaukee and New Orleans, too, to visit my children and grandchildren,” she adds.

It would seem that Brennan is indeed not one to wait around to get things done.

Leonard Earl Johnson is a former cook, merchant seaman, photographer and columnist for Les Amis de Marigny New Orleans, and more. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Johnson decamped to Lafayette. He lives in an old railroad hotel where Elvis Presley once stayed, and regularly rides and writes about Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. His blog is titled Yours Truly in a Swamp, at  www.LEJ.org.

Details. Details. Details.

Cité des Arts
109 Vine Street
Lafayette, La
(337) 291-1122
citedesarts.org

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