Version 1
: Received: 7 December 2022 / Approved: 8 December 2022 / Online: 8 December 2022 (07:37:38 CET)
How to cite:
Crawford, E.E. The Right Opera at the Wrong Time: The Tender Land, Aaron Copland, and the Red Scare. Preprints2022, 2022120147. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0147.v1
Crawford, E.E. The Right Opera at the Wrong Time: The Tender Land, Aaron Copland, and the Red Scare. Preprints 2022, 2022120147. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0147.v1
Crawford, E.E. The Right Opera at the Wrong Time: The Tender Land, Aaron Copland, and the Red Scare. Preprints2022, 2022120147. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0147.v1
APA Style
Crawford, E.E. (2022). The Right Opera at the Wrong Time: <em>The Tender Land</em>, Aaron Copland, and the Red Scare. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0147.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Crawford, E.E. 2022 "The Right Opera at the Wrong Time: <em>The Tender Land</em>, Aaron Copland, and the Red Scare" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0147.v1
Abstract
Aaron Copland’s only full-length opera, The Tender Land has had a difficult production history. Critics of the 1954 New York City Opera Premiere bemoaned the atypical storyline, the music declared too dry, and the singing too sparse. The opera’s failure to dazzle initial audiences is likely because it was originally written for television. Copland was commissioned to write this opera for television in 1952, but was rejected by NBC in 1953, with no official explanation given as to why. The New York City Opera premiere, therefore, was not an accurate representation of Aaron Copland's vision. The opera eventually did find receptive audiences, each success marked by a smaller, more intimate venue, not unlike the intimacy afforded on a sound stage. Perhaps most notable of these was the touring 1993 University of Minnesota production that performed in barns and farmhouses throughout the Midwest. Through this tour, the opera reached a rural community mirrored in the story, providing much more opportunity for the audience to connect to the characters. However, the question remains what caused NBC to initially reject the opera. This paper exposes the likely political obstacles that prevented Copland’s opera from premiering in its intended medium, and the subsequent consequences of displacing The Tender Land from its television premiere.
Keywords
Opera and Politics; McCarthyism; Aaron Copland; Red Scare; Music and Society; 20th Century Musicology
Subject
Arts and Humanities, Music
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
