I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.
Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.
People in very high places suddenly fall, and we are always surprised because we don't factor in the basic element that they're humans and, therefore, they are flawed and have weaknesses.
There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.
We don't have access to a national forum that we had in those days, through the news magazines which were the television news of the time. It's very disturbing to me that we've sort of been pushed to the corners.
We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them.
If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.
America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.
Anyone who creates something new or does something different artistically is going to be singled out.
I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.
I was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father.
I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.
I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.
I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!
Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.
