Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1937, one of Aaron Copland’s least well-known works had its premiere performance. This was an opera written for high school students, New York’s Henry Street Settlement Music School, to be exact, and entitled “The Second Hurricane.” In his memoirs, Copland recalled that at the time he wrote it, he was living at the Empire Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $8.50 a week, and that he wrote the score in a studio he rented, located at what is now the site of Lincoln Center. To direct the premiere of his school opera, Copland hired a young actor-director named Orson Welles. Copland’s score also called for some adult performers as well, including one professional actor by the name of Joseph Cotton, who was paid $10 for his performance. “The newspapers seem to enjoy the idea that a dyed-in-the wool modernist was writing an opera for schoolchildren,” recalled Copland, “so they gave a great deal of attention to every step along the way, particularly the casting. Those kids must have gotten a kick out of seeing their names in the Times and Tribune! The idea of an opera for high school performers appealed to the press, I suppose, for the same reason it appealed to me. My motives were not all unselfish, either: the usual run of symphony audiences submitted to new music when it was played at them, but never showed signs of really wanting it. The atmosphere had become deadening. Yet the composer must compose. A school opera seemed a good momentary solution for one composer, at any rate.”