Easing back in...

So, I've been away for a while. Sorry. There's just really been little I wanted to post about, so I chose just not to. I know it's been tough, but it's okay. I'm back and will be posting more soon, including posts on nine inch nails, E-Z Pass, decadence, and, oh yeah, political music.

At any rate, I thought I would ease back into things by sharing an interesting passage from Jesse Green's review of the new Aldridge/Garfein opera "Elmer Gantry"--after Sinclair Lewis--which opens tomorrow at Montclair State University after a well-received run in Nashville. As a composer who is starting to write more and more in the "operatic" world--for lack of a better word--I found this passage quite illuminating.

"Writing an opera requires a certain amount of arrogance, and putting one on takes at least enough incompetence to cause producers to risk financial suicide. It’s tempting to say that the system as it now exists is designed to frustrate both qualities in favor of safe mediocrity, except that the system has no design at all."

- Jesse Green, NY TImes, January 20, 2008

Ah, that definitely makes me feel better.