American Opera

We’re featuring an American opera on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/16 3:00 p.m.) in Lori Laitman’s 2016 treatment of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” featuring a libretto by David Mason. Hawthorne’s 1850 novel is a moral allegory centering on Hester Prynne’s affair with the Reverend Dimmesdale, the birth of her illegitimate daughter, Pearl, and her strength and determination to make a life for them in the face of hatred and prejudice.

This week's opera features the 1958 recording of Douglas Moore's "The Ballad of Baby Doe." The libretto by John Latouche sets the story of Elizabeth "Baby" Doe (Beverly Sills) and her scandalous marriage to Horace Tabor (William Cassel), the richest man in 19th century Leadville, Colorado to Moore's moving and charming score.

This week's opera is the only full-length opera by Bernard Herrmann based on Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" with a libretto by Herrmann's then wife, Lucille Fletcher.

A Tempo this Saturday (8/13) features a conversation about Opera America's oral history initiative, sharing stories from opera artists about the past 50 years.

My Lai (this work contains profanity that may be upsetting to some, discretion is advised)

In an All-American Sunday Opera, we'll feature Ricky Ian Gordon's 2007 operatic version of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" followed by Samuel Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915 and Aaron Copland's Short Symphony No. 2.

Carlisle Floyd, whom we lost in September of last year, has been called the ‘Father of American Opera,” and on this week’s SUNDAY OPERA (2/13 3:00 p.m.),…