If, on the other hand, you hire composers who love the logic of theatre more than the sound of their own voices, you may end up with a joyous hit like William Bolcom’s “A Wedding,” which opened at the Lyric this month.īolcom, now sixty-six, is the rare living classical composer whom God made with the theatre in mind. True, if you hand out commissions to middle-of-the-road composers who prove maximally unobjectionable to the governing board, or to career academics who wouldn’t know a narrative arc if it hit them in the head, you will perpetrate expensive fizzles. Usually, the collective genius of administration acts to stifle new opera, on the theory that audiences want only the aged, imported European product. Louis also come to mind-where premières are routine, and that’s radical in itself. But the Lyric has a history of being one of very few American houses-the Houston Grand Opera and the Opera Theatre of St. Admittedly, you have to go elsewhere for radical ideas about production and repertory Matthew Epstein, the artistic director, recently left after encountering opposition to his more adventurous plans. Almost every performance is sold out, and the budget is in the black. Fifty years on, it is probably in better health than any other opera company in America.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago began life in the highest style, with Maria Callas making her American début.
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