Children, I Want to Tell You Half of a Story

Seldom do my separate interests as John Adams fan and as production editor overlap, but: let's note that the CD release of A Flowering Tree contains a massive error in the liner notes, which instead of printing the libretto for Act Two repeat the text for Act One. I mean, you could have outsourced your proofreading to Bangalore and someone still would have caught this. I disapprove.


The music itself hasn't really caught my ears yet, and I haven't listened to Act Two yet. A lot of the opera's personality apparently comes from its staging, so maybe it works better in performance. Still, Adams at his best will pull you in pretty quick, and you wonder if premiering two operas in two consecutive years was too much to bite off at once.