Janos Gereben ([log in to unmask]) wrote: >Until and unless you hear a definitive performance of "General William >Booth Enters Into Heaven," you cannot really know what *American opera* >could (and should) be. > >This is unrestrained, abandoned musical drama with a uniquely, inimitably >American sound-and-feel. It is Charles Ives coming home, almost a century >late. I have never heard a performance to match to old Greg Smith Singers one, can't remember who the soloist was, but that was unbuttoned and then some. >Band," after the sublime "The Housatonic at Stockbridge," played by the >orchestra in a white heat, ditto for "Putnam's Camp" (to be replaced by >"Three Places in New England" at two of the three upcoming repetitions of >the concert (Oct. 1, 2, and 3). Small clarification: The Places actually consists of The Housatonic + Putnam's Camp + The St. Gaudens, Boston Common (or is it the other way around?). I imagine you know this, but your sentence could be read a different way. Deryk Barker [log in to unmask]