04 Feb 2005

Democracy: An American Comedy in Washington

How is it possible that a new opera crammed with hot-button subjects—political corruption, ecclesiastical self-satisfaction, feminism, homosexuality—could be a blandly inoffensive entertainment? “Democracy: An American Comedy,” by composer Scott Wheeler and librettist Romulus Linney, commissioned by the Washington National Opera and given its world premiere last weekend, was disappointingly safe. Its provocative themes were smothered by a talky libretto that alternated between earnest exposition and sitcom jokes, set in smoothly tonal, insipid musical language.


Ulysses S. Grant
Thomas LeClear (1818-1882)
Oil on canvas, circa 1880

Lost in Translation From Novels
To Play and Then Opera

By HEIDI WALESON [Wall Street Journal]
February 1, 2005; Page D8

Washington

How is it possible that a new opera crammed with hot-button subjects -- political corruption, ecclesiastical self-satisfaction, feminism, homosexuality -- could be a blandly inoffensive entertainment? "Democracy: An American Comedy," by composer Scott Wheeler and librettist Romulus Linney, commissioned by the Washington National Opera and given its world premiere last weekend, was disappointingly safe. Its provocative themes were smothered by a talky libretto that alternated between earnest exposition and sitcom jokes, set in smoothly tonal, insipid musical language.

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