Mr. Eotvos's music augments traditional strings, winds and brass with saxophones, guitars, electronic keyboards, exotic percussion, ringing telephones and sirens. The vocal lines can ease into speech and usually operate against drifting clouds of sound. Mr. Eotvos's success with prosody outstrips that of most American opera composers in his ability to fit music to the flow of American English. He has written truly theatrical music that advances texts rather than calling attention to itself.

Eotvos’ music - written in a kind of turgid style that characterizes much European modern opera yet conducted with conviction by Music Director Gil Rose - well expresses emotional rigidity. But it’s disappointingly earthbound when attempting anything more. A much-needed musical angel never arrives.

The abridged text reduces the characters to stock figures, and leaves even more loose ends than the play does; it is never clear what the foul-mouthed lawyer Roy Cohn is doing here.

And until the end the music does not illumine the inner life of the people. Basically the score provides a kind of soundscape surrounding the text, some of which is spoken rather than sung. Only the Angel really gets to cut loose and sing.

That said, Eötvös provides a very elegant, supple, varied soundscape that serves as a kind of punctuation for the words, or sweeps across it like a yellow highlighter pen.