Word: virgil
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...Mother of Us All, comic opera by Gertrude S. and Virgil T., based on the life of Susan B., opens tonight in Sanders T. at 8:30 Post M. Music is directed by Victor Y., another Music I entertainer, and the cast is headed by Sara-Jane S. of Barnard H. as the suffragette. Also Saturday and Sunday evenings...
...Mother of Us All was conceived in 1946 when Virgil T. received a commission from the Alice M. Ditson Fund, New York, to write a new opera. Gertrude immediately set to work on the libretto, though the first pains of her fatal cancer slowed progress. Virgil's only stipulation, in suggesting 19th century Americana as the subject, was that it have "nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln...
...opera which Gertrude S. and Virgil T. produced was considerably more coherent than Four Saints in theme and form. The music is a distillation of rural American harmony--Mid-West gospel hymns, old English ballads brought by settlers, and corn-husking and square dance themes. This rural middle class tone, as opposed to the urban, low-class music of jazz and other contemporary American opera, makes the work distinctive. In its new lyric quality is a dissonance and irony which Four Saints, in all its tour de force, does not capture...
While Gertrude was still sketching the text, Virgil grew obviously impatient: "I have a can opener for Alice and a book for you. Write for what else I can bring you. And do send me The Mother of Us All if it is done. Or a couple of acts. I like to look at things a while before I start writing music to them. Affection. Virgil...
...Virgil T. will be up from New York...