Time Will Decide

In San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House last week, the Ford Foundation got the first dividend on its $950,000 grant to U.S. composers for 18 new operas: the premiere of Norman Dello Joio's Blood Moon. Judged by critical response, Blood Moon was a bad bargain. "It does not send you out singing," complained the Chronicle's Alfred Frankenstein. The Examiner's Alexander Fried was more biting. Blood Moon, said he, hovered "between an ambitious grand opera manner and light-opera cliches."

Composer Dello Joio, at least, seemed unconcerned. He is convinced that his frankly romantic music (The Ruby, The Triumph of St. Joan) has a delayed effect. "The people who work closely with my music get things you can't hear the first time," says he. "To quote Verdi, 'Time will decide.' "

Son of an immigrant Italian organist, Dello Joio likes to think of himself as a spiritual descendant of Verdi. Blood Moon tells the story of Ninette Lafont, a beautiful octoroon actress who flees New Orleans on the eve of the Civil War to forget her doomed love for Raymond Barlac, a Southern aristocrat. The wide-ranging plot, based on Dello Joio's own scenario, gave Designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian ample scope for lush sets that imparted a sense of grandeur to the opera's five scenes. American Soprano Mary Costa, who played Ninette, sang beautifully but seemed lost in the schmalz-larded story. Only the heroine's quadroon mother, Cleo, superbly sung by Contralto Irene Dalis, took on the dimensions of life--a singular achievement while coping with some embarrassing lyrics: "Love had fled from your white heart, but my black one still lives in its hell."

Dello Joio had his own opening-night forebodings about Blood Moon. "Conservative people will think it's too modern," said he, "and modern-minded people will think it's too conservative." He got no argument. "I don't like any opera in English," huffed one white-tie traditionalist, and most critics were upset that Dello Joio had used a 19th century idiom. Still, the opera had its redeeming features. If the music lacked the strength of a Verdi opera, it was consistently melodious, at times truly lyrical. If the plot was melodramatic, it gave hints of Dello Joio's gift for sustained drama, an essential gift for a writer of grand opera and a recompense of sorts for the Ford Foundation's handsome handout.

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