The first staged performance with orchestra took place on September 10, 1928, at the Palm Garden (a temporary name for the 52nd Street Theatre) in New York City.
[2] In several articles concerning Voodoo, the New York Amsterdam News varied its reportage of the time Freeman had spent composing the opera.
Initially, the paper said "Although Professor Freeman has been prepared for years for the opportunity to present the negro in opera he has had to bide his time.
A voodoo ceremony takes place during which Lolo and her associate, Fojo, distribute amulets and charms to participants, then retreat to a glen to invoke the snake-god.
[6][7] The New York Herald Tribune reported that the opera was to illustrate "typical Negro life in the days of slavery, while the music includes spirituals, chants, arias, tangoes and other dances, among these a ritualistic voodoo ceremony.
[10] A month later, Valdo Freeman, the composer's son and a baritone, sang excerpts from Voodoo as well as another of his father's operas, Plantation, during a radio recital also broadcast on WGBS on June 25, 1928.
[6][8][14] The "Negro jazz grand opera" (as it was called by the New York Amsterdam News[3]) had its first staged performance at the "Palm Garden" (apparently a temporary name for the 52nd Street Theatre) on September 10, 1928.
[19] The alternate cast for the staged presentation included Rosetta Jones, Cordelia Paterson, Luther Lamont, Blanche Smith, John H. Eckles, Leo C. Evans, and Harold Bryant.
The composer's style came in for harder criticism, with the reviewer calling his music "not original" since it was too dependent on external influences such as spirituals and Tin Pan Alley songs.
The unnamed reviewer noted, "The composer utilizes themes from spirituals, Southern melodies, and jazz rhythms which, combined with traditional Italian operatic forms, produce a curiously naive mélange of varied styles.
He contended that these opposing forces can be heard in Voodoo as one hears the influences of Edward MacDowell, Richard Wagner, and Harry Burleigh as well as spirituals, although Freeman's musical expression was hampered by the poor libretto.
The New York Amsterdam News highlighted how Freeman had to pay for the production with his own funding and questioned why the African-American community wasn't more supportive.