Douglas Moore usually composes one opera every seven years; to get enough time, he has to wait for his sabbatical leave as chairman of the music department of Columbia University.
On his first leave in 1935, he wrote White Wings (based on the play by Philip Barry); he managed the musical score for Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster in a summer only because it was short and could be dashed off in a few months. On his second sabbatical, in 1942, he picked a libretto that "wouldn't work" and "missed the boat." He wrote a Quintet and some songs...
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