The most successful American opera ever staged at the Metropolitan was Deems Taylor's Peter Ibbetson. At its premiere in 1931, it won 36 curtain calls, ran for four seasons. After that, Ibbetson disappeared from the Met's repertory, for no very clear reason. Says Composer Taylor: "After all, I can't go ring Mr. Bing's bell and say, 'Where's my opera?' " Last week, after a quarter-century, his opera was backnot at the Met but at New York's enterprising Empire State Festival.
Ibbetson, based on the mistily romantic 19th century novel by George du Maurier,...
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