Harbison's "Great American Opera?"

Synopsis

For a lad who grew up in Orange, New Jersey, listening to the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, American composer John Harbison celebrated his 61st birthday in a big way: On today’s date in 1999, Harbison’s opera “The Great Gatsby” premiered at the Met, with its composer on hand to take a curtain call with its cast.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, a devastating evocation of America’s “Roaring 20s,” is a regular contender for the title of the “Great American Novel,” but Harbison says when he told his mother he was thinking of writing an opera based on “Gatsby,” she wasn’t very enthusiastic, arguing, in effect, that the characters in the opera were a totally unsympathetic bunch. Gatsby, the novel’s anti-hero is a both a fraud and a crook. Daisy, Gatsby’s lost love and the object of his obsessive desire, is selfish, spoiled and shallow.

But Harbison saw it differently: “Yearning and despair are very big operatic themes,” he said. “As for the character of Jay Gatsby, I like that he takes a lot of risks and is steadfast and loyal to some vision that is not realistically possible. The opera provides many opportunities to look at both sides of that, to understand to what degree he's an impostor, and to what degree his story is real, which is a big American theme in general.”

Time will tell if Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby” will prove a strong contender for the title of “The Great American Opera.”

Music Played in Today's Program

John Harbison (b. 1938) Remembering Gatsby Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond. Vol. 11, from "Minnesota Orchestra at 100" special edition boxed CD set

On This Day

Births

• 1871 - American composer and conductor Henry Hadley, in Somerville, Massachusetts;

• 1909 - Danish composer Vagn Holmboe, in Horsens, eastern Jutland;

• 1938 - American composer and conductor John Harbison, in Orange, New Jersey;

Deaths

• 1738 - French composer Jean Joseph Mouret, age 56, in Charenton;

• 1783 - Spanish composer and organist Padre Antonio Soler, age 54, at the monastery of El Escorial;

• 1974 - French composer André Jolivet, age 69, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1721 - Handel: opera "Floridante" (Julian date: Dec. 9);

• 1823 - Schubert: incidental music to "Rosamunde," in Vienna, at the Theater an der Wien;

• 1879 - Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite No. 1, in Moscow (Julian date: Dec. 8);

• 1886 - Brahms: Piano Trio No. 3 in c, Op. 101, in Budapest; The work was also presented in Vienna on February 26, 1887, by members of the Heckmann Quartet with the composer at the piano;

• 1890 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 3, in Sat. Petersbur (Julian date: Dec. 8);

• 1928 - Bloch: "America," in New York City;

• 1959 - Stravinsky: "Double Canon (Raoul Dufy in memoriam)" in New York at Town Hall, during a Stravinsky Festival;

• 1999 - Harbison: opera "The Great Gatsby," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with a cast including Jerry Hadley as Gatsby and Dawn Upshaw as Daisy, with James Levine conducting;

Others

• 1775 - Mozart finishes his Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, K. 219, in Salzburg; The work was probably premiered soon after, with the composer as soloist;

• 1915 - Stravinsky's public debut as a conductor, leading a performance of his "Firebird" Ballet Suite at a benefit concert organized by Diaghilev in Geneva, Switzerland;