Music Theatre since 1990 - Schott Music

Synopsis
A progressive drama of temptation, responsibility, and faith. Clyde Griffiths, Midwestern missionary’s
son, is a young man working as a flirtatious bellhop in Chicago. He relocates to New
York upon being offered a position in his Uncle Samuel’s shirt factory. Wasting no time he
pursues one of the workers there, Roberta Alden, after being warned not to by fellow workers.
Clyde quickly moves on to a new love interest in Sondra Finchley. Before long, Clyde is juggling
Roberta and Sondra, only to soon discover that Roberta is pregnant. It becomes clear that
Sondra is Clyde’s true love and Roberta is nothing more than a burden. Clyde schemes to rid
himself of the burden of an unwanted lover with a child on the way.
‘Based on a true story, Theodore Dreiser‘s novel An American Tragedy addresses one of American
literature‘s great, universal subjects. The central character Clyde Griffiths is everyman, and
his dilemma is at the heart of the American experience, a dilemma as timely today as it was
when the work was written.’ (Tobias Picker)
An American Tragedy
02.12.2005 Metropolitan Opera New York
Many composers...could learn from Mr. Picker‘s know-how about the theater. An American
Tragedy [...] works as an opera. The cast seemed to relish singing Mr. Picker‘s opera [...] and whole
stretches of Mr. Picker‘s score would not be out of place in a Broadway theater. Critics and opera
buffs who want the Met to do its part to make opera a living art form have to be heartened that it
presented this work, and that an audience on Friday gave a prolonged ovation to a living composer.
(Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times)
Picker‘s harmony flirts with traditional tonality without falling prey to cliché, his orchestration
achieves both transparency and power, and his crowd scenes skilfully set solo voices against a
booming chorus and a churning orchestra. It‘s a pleasure to listen to him put one idea in front of
another; a twelve-tone composer in his youth, he retains the serialist‘s habit of working obsessively
with a tight array of notes...The score is full of such careful touches [...] it‘s a serious, substantial
piece. (Alex Ross, The New Yorker)
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