by Cheryl Campbell
On April 10, 2000, Lewis Spratlan caught the attention of the world when his opera Life is a Dream won the Pulitzer Prize for music. The Pulitzer is awarded for "distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year".
The work was a collaboration with librettist James Maraniss, and is based on La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón. It was commissioned by the New Haven Opera Theatre, and had its (partial) premiere on January 28, 2000.
In addition to winning the Pulitzer, Spratlan (who is a professor of music at Amherst College) has received numerous fellowships: from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation, Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Life is a Dream also won an award from the Rockefeller Foundation's New England Conservatory Opera Competition.
So who is this composer? Recently, I interviewed him to find out.
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