The New York Times-20080127--ELMER GANTRY-- Is It an Opera-- -Letter-

Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080127

'ELMER GANTRY': Is It an Opera?; [Letter]

Full Text (161  words)

To the Editor:

Re Behold! An Operatic Miracle by Jesse Green [Jan. 20]:

If the lexicographers of the Harvard, Grove and Webster dictionaries cannot fully agree on how an opera differs from a musical, then pity the general managers of major American opera companies confronted with composers claiming to have written the first great American opera.

It took the Metropolitan Opera 50 years finally to produce Porgy and Bess because many considered it more of a musical than an opera. Similarly, contemporary composers and librettists like Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein may have introduced a new American work that despite its merit musically and dramatically, will have some music critics reviewing it as a protracted musical rather than grand opera.

So we are faced with a paradox: Will the first great American opera, yet to be composed and so eagerly awaited for over half a century, turn out to be nothing more than a monumental Broadway musical?

Les Dreyer

New York