Carry Nation
Music by Douglas Moore · premiered 1966
Carry Nation is an opera in a prologue and two acts by American composer Douglas Moore which is based on the life of temperance activist Carrie Nation, whose sometimes spelled her first name "Carry". The work uses an English-language libretto by W. N. Jayme.
The opera was commissioned by the University of Kansas in commemoration of the school's 100th anniversary. The premiere performance was given at KU's Murphy Hall on March 28, 1966 with a cast headlined by four professional opera singers brought in for the event, and the supporting cast supplied by KU's music and theatre students. Lewin Goff staged the production and Robert Baustian conducted. The opera was subsequently given its first professional production at the San Francisco Opera in June 1966 under the baton of Herbert Grossman. The New York City Opera mounted the first New York production in March 1968 and released a recording of the work in 1969. All three of these initial stagings and the recording starred mezzo-soprano Beverly Wolff in the title role.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Carry Nation (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is generally characterized by lyricism in a popular or conservative style which generally eschewed the more experimental progressive trends of musical modernism. Composer Virgil Thomson described Moore as a neoromantic composer who was influenced by American folk music. While several of his works enjoyed popularity during his lifetime, only his folk opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) has remained well known into the 21st century. Moore first created music while a student…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Douglas Moore", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Douglas Moore
- Giants in the Earth (1951)
- Gallantry (1958)