Rain, Opera in Two Acts

The composer writes: "Somerset Maugham's short story Rain was suggested to me for an opera by Bob Brewer, who had been the stage director for the premieres of two of my operas in New York, Mary Dyer and Abigail Adams in which my wife Lynn had sung the title roles. Bob knew what kind of a dramatic story I would be attracted to and what Lynn's vocal and dramatic gifts would bring to the role of Sadie Thompson. I was fortunate to have been invited in the early 1990s to participate in an ASCAP four-week film scoring workshop in Los Angeles, getting insight into the focus and condensation of musical effects that later the Rain libretto demanded. I was also writing this opera for my wife who has vast operatic experience around the world, and had sung Minnie, the miners' saloon keeper in Puccini's Girl of the Golden West at the Metropolitan and elsewhere, a perfect background for her to give life to Sadie Thompson who struggles to extricate herself from her barroom world. The premiere of this opera took place in Alice Tully Hall in February, 2003."