Baby Doe

When U.S. composers set out to exploit uniquely native material, they all too frequently lose sight of the folk for the folksiness. Pulitzer Prizewinner Douglas Moore, 62, a Columbia professor, has been a notable exception. At least one of his previous operas, The Devil and Daniel Webster, achieved an easy lyrical style which has kept it alive in repertory as an authentic domestic classic. For his fourth opera, premiered last week at the legend-laden Opera House in Central City, Colo., Composer Moore once again mined some rich native lore: the story of Colorado Silver Millionaire Horace Austin Warner ("HAW") Tabor and his blonde bride from Wisconsin, Elizabeth McCourt ("Baby") Doe. The opera's title: The Ballad of Baby Doe.

"This dramatic story," says Composer Moore, "makes an ideal outline for an opera libretto." He is right. Born in Vermont in 1830, HAW Tabor caught the gold fever early, wandered with his wife Augusta to Colorado, and for 20 years alternated storekeeping and prospecting. He made his big strike at Leadville when he was 47; within a year he was a millionaire. To help celebrate his new affluence, he gave Denver a magnificent Opera House with his name engraved on a two-foot block of silver. Librettist John (Cabin in the Sky) Latouche picks up the story from there. Tabor became the richest man in Colorado, and this attracted 20-year-old Baby Doe, who blew into Leadville in 1881, established herself as Tabor's mistress and persuaded him to divorce his wife. As an interim Senator in Washington, he married Baby Doe in a lavish ceremony attended by Congressmen, diplomats and President Chester A. Arthur himself. But when silver fell in 1893, Tabor fell with it.

For the remaining six years of his life he eked out an existence as a postmaster and by the sale of his lavish possessions (including his collection of $700 nightshirts). The story gets its special twist from the fact that Baby Doe remained faithful to him to the end. For 36 years after his death she lived on Tabor's last silver property in Leadville, rarely left the place and was found frozen to death there in a dilapidated shack in 1935.

Out of this invitingly gaudy material Composer Moore has wrought a clean, melodious score which succeeds in conveying strong period flavor without being condescendingly folksy. Its melodic high spots include Baby Doe's Willow Song, the stunning Silver Song (sung by Met Coloratura Dolores Wilson) and a moving choral, Lovely Evening. Sophisticated musically, the score nevertheless is marked by a clarity rare to the U.S. opera stage. "Most composers today seem to be writing under such influences as Schoenberg and Stravinsky," says Moore. "I tried to return to melody as the key to communication." Others will get a chance to decide how he has succeeded. Sold out for its 16 Central City performances, The Ballad of Baby Doe will probably be performed on Broadway in the fall.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.