Tale for a Deaf Ear (original) (raw)

Tale for a Deaf Ear is an opera in one act with music and lyrics by Mark Bucci, sung in three languages and based on a story by Elizabeth Enright that appeared in the April 1951 edition of Harper's Magazine. The work was commissioned by Samuel Wechsler for performance at the 1957 Tanglewood Music Festival. The work received an enthusiastic response from an overflow audience of 1,300 when it premiered at Tanglewood on August 5, 1957. The cast was of student artists, of which Billings and Kraft went on to have successful opera careers and Purrington became a nationally known opera director and administrator. The production was directed by the great impresario Boris Goldovsky. The opera received its first professional production at the New York City Opera on April 6, 1958, in a double billing