On the Ojai Music Festival
By Mark Swed
6/15/2022 The Los Angeles Times
Like most theater, only more deliriously so, opera is not the art of happy families.
But there is American Modern Opera Company — a.k.a., and for good reason, AMOC. And there is the Ojai Music Festival. Both present themselves as happy families. So much for the so-called Anna Karenina principle, based on Tolstoy’s famous opening line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” There is nothing else like AMOC.
This Utopian collective of 17 extraordinary artists happily reinventing opera was the communal music director last weekend for the 75th anniversary of this ever-quixotic festival.
