Trouble in Tahiti

Trouble in Tahiti is a short opera written by Leonard Bernstein in 1952. Set in the affluence of a nameless American suburb (the characters at one point name a handful of fairly toney suburbs that it could have been set in), the story shows the disenchantment of Dinah with her philandering husband Sam, who is more interested in his career than in his family. They effect a reconcilation of sorts at the end of the opera, although it is doubtful that it will last.

It is, in many ways, a piece of juvenilia: the characters are two-dimensional, the plot does not go anywhere in particular, and the music represents a grab-bag of styles. It also represents, however, many of Bernstein's most appealing qualities: the heroine's aria has a wistful melancholy that reminds us of Aaron Copland's earlier vernacular works and of Bernstein's later writing in West Side Story, while the jazzy interludes harken back to the score Bernstein wrote for On The Town.