Festival in Spartanburg

The mournful, melodious Mozart Requiem, the lusty John Gay-Christopher Pepusch Beggar's Opera, many another choice piece of music were heard last week in a Southern cotton-mill town. Rarely are such works performed in big cities. Spartanburg, S.C. (population: 32,500) is one of the smallest U.S. cities to support an annual music festival. Thanks to the present boss of the music--jawsome, 43-year-old Ernst Bacon, dean of the music school at Spartanburg's Converse College--in the last two years Spartanburg has heard some resounding sounds: the opera Dido and Aeneas, by 17th-Century England's great Henry Purcell; Tchaikovsky's Eugene One gin; Pergolesi's Stabat Mater; a Mozart concerto for three pianos.

Spartanburg's festival has no rich backers, no imported stars. In last week's Requiem the tenor soloist was an insurance agent, the baritone a city councilman who is in the sand business. A music-store clerk was the rollicking gangster hero of the 18th-Century low-lives in the Beggar's Opera; his moll was Ruth Ives, Converse voice teacher and operatic production manager.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.