The great American opera composer Jack Beeson has died at the age of 88.
This from the Eugene Opera Company blog:
Beeson’s next opera, Lizzie Borden, again based on an American subject, was commissioned by the Ford Foundation for the New York City Opera. Lizzie Borden tells the familiar story with less emphasis on the ax murders than on “the psychological climate that made them inevitableâ€, according to critic Robert Sherman. In American Opera Librettos, Andrew H. Drummond writes, “This opera has an obvious dramatic effectiveness in which a clear and direct development with tightly drawn characterization leads to a powerful climax.†New York City Opera premiered Lizzie Borden in 1965, and it was produced for television by the National Educational Television Network in 1967 using the original cast. A new NYCO production opened in March 1999 and was telecast by PBS.
A detailed biography can be found at Boosey & Hawkes.
