First Performance: Excerpts - the Lemon Grove Historical Society, San Diego, CA
A PREVIEW
September 21, 2003

Audience response to the preview

Clare Colquitt, Edith Wharton scholar:

There were about 50 persons present yesterday at the performance, and I knew several people there, all of whom thoroughly relished the occasion. Especially moving was the excerpt from the second act, which one person in the audience (during the question and answer session) later described as"haunting."

Helen Ofield, event sponsor:

. . . The Historical Society board is equally delighted. Calls the next day, following on the numerous comments at the post concert reception, all spoke to the audience's delight in hearing how the work had been created. Interestingly, our two artists-in-residence, who created the large Kumeyaay murals, were especially caught up in the description of the working process. People felt that they were in on the birth of a new work of art. You were speaking to the choir -- teachers (active and retired), book club members, history buffs, musicians (amateur and professional) and people who had never been to an opera were united in feeling that they had witnessed something significant and fascinating. Your Edith and her hairpins riveted everyone. The audience's questions were numerous and good--and amusing what with advice being offered--a real compliment to you and Don that they felt so personally involved.

I greatly look forward to reading the libretto and its interesting structure of author speaking through and with her characters as she discovers her true self. This opera must be produced. Wharton is a thoroughly modern figure in this context.