Opera Maine’s 2025 Studio Artist Program presents:

Based on the short story by Willa Cather, Paul’s Case follows a high school student living in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century. After getting expelled from school his father forces him to give up being an usher at Carnegie Music Hall, which he loves, and get a paying job. Feeling confined by his teachers, his father, and the dull middle-class life in Pittsburgh, he steals the company’s weekend deposit and takes a train to New York City. He uses the money to buy a new wardrobe and books himself a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In the city Paul meets a freshman from Yale who takes him around the city. He is enthralled with the luxuries and excitement of city life, but it doesn’t take long for his escape to come to an end.

  “In “Paul’s Case,” …. the composer Gregory Spears combines minimalism, baroque gestures, and extended vocal techniques into a distinctive and pungent musical language . . . Unlike many contemporary opera composers, Mr. Spears has a gift for writing ensembles, and they are original . . . the pacing is taut, … and the denouement appropriately wrenching.” 
 – Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal   Read the entire review

  ” . . . an arresting little piece that communicates its haunting story with clarity and a sense of inevitability . . . ”
– Roger Catlin, The Washington Post   Read the entire review

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