CRASH! Margo lost her voice, whether from fear or fever, and portrayed Julie half-spoken throughout - which few reviewers remarked. Now, professionals at crucial moments just don't lose their voices - or what makes them professional? Yet I also endured misrepresentations on other sides. For instance, there was Prokofiev's Flaming Angel in whose lavish shadow my opera was economically given short shrift. Had I been more experienced, or more aggressive, perhaps I could have imposed righter terms; but how was I to know that finished sets don't resemble maquettes? that lighters won't take last minute advice from composers lamenting what seems a peasant cottage in cheap blackness instead of in a wealthy midsummer haze? My sour grapes growing from the stage's scraggly poplar might have ripened were I less concerned with just the music. And the critics were blinder than I. So, until an ideal production is one day mounted and still reaps bad write-ups, I'll continue to pass the buck in retrospect. << less