No For An Answer

Marc Blitzstein is an earnest, nice-looking, pink-principled native of Philadelphia who was once a wonder-child at the piano, later studied composition under Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schonberg. More than three years ago, Composer Blitzstein's opera about a steel strike, The Cradle Will Rock, was given a bleak but exciting Manhattan production, with the composer pounding a piano for lack of orchestral accompaniment. Last Sunday night, in Manhattan's Mecca Auditorium, another bleak Blitzstein opera had its opening, with the composer at the piano. No For An Answer, originally conceived as a $30,000 production, was rushed into view because, said Marc Blitzstein, "it's later than we think and it has something to say that I want said right now." No For An Answer is about Greeks, but its references to Greek pluck are purely coincidental: Composer-Librettist Blitzstein began it more than two years ago, when most people thought of Greeks as hamburger-joint men. Mr. Blitzstein's Greeks are waiters in a summer hotel. They form a Diogenes Social Club, which burgeons into a union. A young upper-class couple fall in with the waiters: they want to learn the answers. To anyone who has ever seen a labor play, it is no surprise that They--the vigilantes, the Interests, the Fascists--kill the leader of the waiters, burn the club. From the leader's father, a kindly hamburger-Greek, the waiters take courage to go on, sing a chorus full of resounding Noes.

Where The Cradle Will Rock salted its proletarian thesis with genuinely funny satire, No For An Answer lacks wit -- al though left-wingers will like its interpolated lampoon of a saloon-socialite singing I'm Fraught with You. Composer Blitz stein's jittery tunes occasionally develop into muscular near-melodies, are theatrically effective in the last ten minutes of the opera. For the most part they are sung, and sometimes talked, by people who were hired as actors rather than as singers. The production has a minimum of props and no scenery. No For An Answer, presented by a committee that includes several Communist fellow travelers, is scheduled for two more Sunday night performances. Marc Blitzstein would be glad if some Broadway producer would then take over.

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