Submitted by Lois C Schwartz, Sep 21, 2007 10:09

FYI Einstein on the Beach was performed at BAM in 1984 and 1992. Nixon in China was also at BAM (though perhaps only in concert performance, but it has been televised). The Rake's Progress which seemed utterly distrubingly dissonant when introduced at The Met in 1953 is very tame now and has been performed fairly regularly at The Met. So Mr. Mortier's program does not seem very audacious to me, rather an ostentatious attempt to pretend to an awareness of American opera. It's rather old hat and disturbingly ignorant of what else is out there in the way of American opera that needs to be made available to NY'ers.

There are dozens of contemporary American works we've yet to hear in NYC...Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights; Bernard Hermann's Wuthering Heights, Carlisle Floyd's Willie Stark; Dominick Argento's The Aspern Papers; Lee Hoiby's The Tempest, to name just a few.

Presenting any of these would take a really "bad boy". Unless of course your name is Gordon Ostrowkski and you run the opera department at the Manhattan School of Music...the only place we get to hear any of the fine American works the mainstream companies see fit to ignore!

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