 |
Composers DatebookAuthor: American Public Media
Composers Datebook is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each. Language: en Genres: Music, Music History Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
Adamo at the opera
Thursday, 12 March, 2026
SynopsisIt might seem farfetched that Winona Ryder, Emma Watson and Charles Ives might have anything in common, but there is a connection of sorts: Ryder appeared in a 1994 film based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic 19th century novel, Little Women, Emma Watson appears in the 2019 remake and, in 1913, American composer Charles Ives composed “The Alcotts,” the second movement of his Concord Sonata for piano, which evokes Louisa May, her novel and her real-life family and friends, who included the New England Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau.Set during the American Civil War, Alcott’s Little Women chronicles the coming of age of four young women in Concord, Massachusetts. The story of has charmed readers and film-goers around the world. Ives’s music, like Alcott’s novel, is nostalgic, affectionate, and quietly powerful.Contemporary American composer, Mark Adamo, crafted an opera based on Alcott’s Little Women which premiered on today’s date in 1998 at the Opera Studio of Houston Grand Opera. After its premiere, that company’s general director, David Gockley, pronounced Adamo’s opera “destined to become an American classic,” and since its successful Houston Opera revival in 2000, Adamo’s Little Women has been staged again and again, to equal acclaim from audiences and critics.Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Ives (1874-1954): The Alcotts from Concord Sonata; Anthony de Mare, piano; CRI 837Mark Adamo (b. 1962): Little Women; Houston Grand Opera; Patrick Summers, conductor; Ondine 988
