Thanks Henry.

Ah, the life of the mind … Without knowing about the Jake Heggie Dallas world premiere or being in a “cone of silence,” I watched Gregory Peck et al. yesterday morning in the 1956 Hollywood Moby Dick masterpiece [1 hour 55 minutes] and wondered how a new opera on Moby Dick might fare given the strong presence of Britten’s Billy Budd in the repertoire. [In the afternoon, I listened to Orff’s Commedia and Britten’s Curlew River.]

I also have Argento’s Dallas ‘The Aspern Papers’ on ghostly VHS, and, as my $29 COBY DVD player is on the blink after 8 years service, my Aspern Papers VHS is in the bullpen for a spin in the next week or so.

The Washington National Opera also followed up its relationship with Menotti with one with Ward, Argento, and then Floyd [Susannah, Mice/Men]. The follow-up relationship with Bolcom has been less strong to date, I see.

Back in NEA/Opera America days, fine things were said about Argento’s ‘The Dream Voyage of Edgar Allen Poe’, and I never understood why the WNO, Baltimore, or Wolf Trap Opera never revived it. I wonder how the Dallas production went. (The WNO had a somewhat unfortunate experience, I believe, with Argento’s Dream of Valentino, though I don’t remember the details and I didn’t see it.)

Thanks again.

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[Yesterday I found my LP of Ingram Marshall’s 1976 Fragility Cycles when I went to dig out my lawnmover from the garage.]

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Henry, thank you for your comments and careful and loving compilation, which, however, I believe supports the point that I could only make in haste. (I saw all the productions that you note.)

The Washington Opera petitioned the U.S. Congress to be renamed the Washington NATIONAL Opera, which it thought would help it with national (and international) fundraising. In return for the moniker, the company promised Congress and the American people that it would stage ‘one American opera each and every season’ (as I repeat often here and elsewhere).

There are already holdovers on the WNO Board of Directors from the recent time that the company was called, the “Opera Society of Washington”, who strongly want to renounce this promise, so that the company can become more like the conservative “singers’ house’ that the Metropolitan Opera was from, say 1967 to 1991 (or perhaps you could say until Mr Gelb’s arrival, although this would not be completely fair to Mr Volpe, and Mr Levine, who increasingly sought to bring European stagecraft, if not marketing pizzazz, to the MET Opera).

Now, as to your list, may we stipulate that Benjamin Britten’s ‘Billy Budd’ and ‘Peter Grimes’ (this season) are not American opera, under a definition that would be recognized by the Office of the Senate Legal Counsel? Nor is Wagner’s “American Ring” an American opera, under a definition recognizable to the Senate or House Offices of Legal Counsels.

Additionally, and as you note, Previn’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and Nick Maw’s “Sophie’s Choice” are only honorary American operas.

I really don’t care if for the next few years the Washington National Opera were to continue doing “safe rep,” but I’d like our National Company to keep its promise to Congress and to the American people and to do one American opera ‘each and every season’ or for them to return the NATIONAL title. (The Washington National Opera now reminds me of the old, once active National Endowment for the Arts which believed that it did not need to follow the operational guidelines of its founding legislation ….)

Why shouldn’t the Washington NATIONAL Opera be performing Samuel Barber’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” or Richard Danielpour’s slave opera or Philip Glass’s ‘Akhenaton’ or John Adams’s ‘Doctor Atomic’ or Tobias Picker’s ‘An American Tragedy’ or John Harbison’s ‘Great Gatsby’ or Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking” or a Peter Lieberson or Lowell Lieberman opera — or William Grant Still’s “A Troubled Island”? (They did perform once or twice the world premiere of Scott Wheeler’s ‘Democracy’ with an apprentice cast on the George Washington University stage.)

And Henry, do you know whether the Dallas is doing any American operas over the next three pre-George Steel planned seasons? Has it been in any way as vital as David Gockley’s Houston or San Francisco Operas have been for the past twenty-five years? I didn’t have time to check yesterday. Thanks again.

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Gotta run now to an ill-named Brookings conference on “Post-Conflict Georgia” …

Congratulations to Mr Steel and to the Dallas Opera, although I was hoping that he would be appointed the General Director of the Washington National Opera, which has promised Congress and the American people to produce one American opera each and every season.