Word: asters
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...panel members emphasized that the risk of contracting an AIDS infection from donor blood is quite remote. "You have a greater chance of dying from the anesthesia," noted Dr. Richard Aster of the Blood Center of Southeastern Wisconsin. Stanford University Statistician Lincoln Moses estimated that about 120 AIDS-infected samples slip into the blood supply each year, out of a total of 12 million units donated. Since each pint donated can be split among two or three recipients, as many as 360 people could receive AIDS-infected blood each year, though how many will develop the disease is unknown...
Recognizing this, the Rochbergs extracted the China Aster episode as the centerpiece of their opera. China's story, related by one of the novel's characters as a cautionary tale, is onedimensional: pressed by a friend to take a $1,000 loan, China, a candlemaker, invests it unwisely, goes broke and dies. This essentially is the plot of the opera, and it is not strong enough to support an evening of musical theater. It is merely the old pay-the-rent melodrama, not real drama...
Ultimately, though, these isolated moments are not enough to make The Confidence Man into a coherent operatic whole. By focusing on China Aster, composer and librettist have made the character of the Confidence Man (Baritone Brent Ellis) into a supporting player. Whenever they include other episodes from the novel-principally a scene in which the Confidence Man bilks a barber out of a shave by appealing to his trust-they needlessly distract attention from the main drama. The story of China Aster is not enough; the full story of the Confidence Man would be too much...
...best observation on the opera's difficulties comes from none other than Melville. The heading of Chapter 40 of The Confidence-Man reads, "In which the story of China Aster is at second-hand told by one who, while not disapproving the moral, disclaims the spirit of the style." The grimly humorous spirit of Melville is missing from the opera, with nothing substantive to replace...
...Sunbelt's shiniest jewel. New hotels and office towers are rising in Miami, and once sleepy towns near by are growing skylines of their own. The Rolls-Royces still roll royally along Palm Beach's Worth Avenue, and Fort Lauderdale is, as ever, where boy meets girl every aster vacation...