Grover’s Corners Meets Rorem’s Arias

“Aaron Copland wanted to make it an opera. So did Leonard Bernstein. But Thornton Wilder, the author of Our Town, turned both composers down. Now, 68 years after it was written and 30 years after Wilder’s death, the play has made it to the opera stage. Our Town, with music by Ned Rorem and a libretto by J. D. McClatchy, received its premiere [in Bloomington, Indiana] on Friday evening.”