On this day in 1934, the opera Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertrude Stein (libretto) and Virgil Thomson (music) premiered. Few would know a line from Four Saints today, and fewer are humming its tunes, but the opera was popular and a small sensation when it opened. Some attended for the usual Stein reasons -- all of them wrong, said her detractors. Stein's most popular work, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, had been a hit the previous year, and many opera-goers must have hoped for a similar degree of eccentric fun, or just to be present for the launch of some freshly-coined Steinism ... FULL STORY »
