Postman Rings Twice

American composer to watch: Wisconsin-born Lee Hoiby, 33, whose first opera, The Scarf, had its premiere last week at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto (TIME, June 23). Based on a Chekhov short story, the opera tells of a Circe-like enchantress who sits in an isolated farmhouse on blizzardy nights and without the knowledge of her aging husband, lures in passing bucks with a wave of her crimson scarf, symbolizing her occult powers. After a postman spends the night, the husband rebels; the wife silences him by strangling him with her scarf. At Spoleto last week, the postman rang the bell twice--both as to libretto (by Poet Harry Duncan) and music. Composer Hoiby's score was deft, dramatic, highly descriptive, reminiscent of Gian Carlo Menotti, who taught Hoiby at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute. The opera had tension as well as lyric elasticity, especially when the postman-lover fell into a charmed sleep by the fire and the wife sang a lilting incantation. With both audience and critics, Composer Hoiby scored a clean hit. Said Rome's daily Il Messaggero: "It is impossible to doubt Hoiby's musical quality . . . The vitality of Chekhov could not be caught better than this."

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