If folk music is the good earth from which much great music springs, the U.S. has a rich subsoil. But little has been cultivated outside the jazz patch, and the U.S. opera crop has been especially sparse. Last week a foreign-born U.S. composer proclaimed that the soil was ready to bear, if only U.S. composers would work it. He offered a piece of his own produce to prove his point.
Down in the Valley, a one-act "folk opera" by Composer Kurt Weill and Librettist Arnold Sundgaard, had become a sensational hit on the campus...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
