American composer to watch: Wisconsin-born Lee Hoiby, 33, whose first opera, The Scarf, had its première last week at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto (TIME, June 23). Based on a Chekhov short story, the opera tells of a Circe-like enchantress who sits in an isolated farmhouse on blizzardy nights and without the knowledge of her aging husband, lures in passing bucks with a wave of her crimson scarf, symbolizing her occult powers. After a postman spends the night, the husband rebels; the wife silences him by strangling him with her scarf. At Spoleto last week, the postman rang...
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