The Great Divide In Contemporary Opera

David Patrick Stearns: “If music is the universal language it’s often proclaimed to be, why has nothing close to a consensus emerged on the two high-profile opera openings of the summer? … The division is emblematic of a continuing split between composers who draw from such past tonal composers as Samuel Barber and those arising from a more recent modernist past; Cold Mountain belongs to the former and Written on Skin the latter.”