While on a business trip to Salt Lake City last week, I was pleased to
see that the Utah Opera was open for business.  Decided to take a flyer
on whatever they were doing (hoping for Mozart or Puccini).  Turns out
they were doing The Ballad of Baby Doe, a 1950's- vintage opera by Douglas
Moore.  Not the usual stuff I listen to, but at $12 a ticket in the cheap
seats, what the heck.  It was the first time I've heard any of this opera,
which was performed in English with surtitles.  It was given in the Capitol
Theater, a building nearly from the era of the opera, having been built in
1912 or thereabouts.

It was wonderful.  I should have known I was going to like it, as the
action is set in Leadville, Colorado, and Washington (I grew up in Denver
and have been to Leadville many times, and I now live near D.C.).  There
are several excellent arias, the most famous of which are Baby Doe Tabor's
"Willow" song and the "Silver" aria.  I got even more of a kick out of
Augusta's "Old Hands" aria and Baby Doe's show closer, "Forever Young."
Other memorable moments included the writing for quartets.  Augusta's
cronies were fine in "Shout it [Divorce] from the rooftops!", and I
especially liked the Washington dandies' performance of "Scandal, scandal;
another administration scandal!" You've got to love an opera that has in
it the line, "England, France and Germany are erecting retaliatative
barriers."

The program notes said that Baby Doe was one of the three most significant
American operas, with Porgy and Bess and I can't remember the third.  My
program notes seem to have disappeared; you'd think I'd know the third but
I've forgotten.  Anyway, listmembers who are interested in tonal but
different opera with a lot of catchy tunes will like Baby Doe, I'm sure.

Mitch Friedfeld