American Opera Initiative

Some operas go on for five or six hours - just think of the Twilight of the Gods and other works by Richard Wagner - and there are also short operas that hardly last an hour. However, the Washington National Opera likely set a new record last week. On Monday (Nov. 19), it fed the audience no less than three operas within one hour; each was exactly 20 minutes long, with no intermissions in between. Fast food in the motherland of McDonalds? Not necessarily so, says our reporter in Washington, D.C., Georg Hirsch, who attended the world premiere of the three works and who spoke with composers, opera management, and audience members.

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