Beach at the opera

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1995, an opera by American composer Amy Beach received its first professional production at Lincoln Center in New York City — 63 years after Beach completed it in the summer of 1932.

Beach was 65 years old in 1932 and for years had wanted to write an opera on an American theme. She settled on a play by Nan Bagby Stephens, a writer from Atlanta. Their operatic collaboration was entitled Cabildo, after the famous prison in New Orleans where the pirate Pierre Lafitte was imprisoned during the War of 1812. Stephens even supplied Beach with authentic Creole songs and dances to incorporate in her score.

Beach had a concise one-act opera finished by August of 1932, but it was never staged during her lifetime. Both the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II postponed various attempts at a staging. Sadly, when an opera workshop at the University of Georgia finally got around to an amateur production in 1945, Beach had already died.

The manuscript of the opera remained unpublished for decades, but with the passage of time, interest in Amy Beach led to the Lincoln Center performance in 1995, conducted by Ransom Wilson.

Music Played in Today's Program

Amy Beach (1867-1944): Cabildo; ensemble; Ransom Wilson, conductor; Delos 3170