Associated Press - 21 December 2001
NEW YORK (AP) — Erik Johns, who wrote the libretto for Aaron
Copland's only full-length opera, The Tender Land, died on 11 December in
a fire at his home in Fishkill, N.Y. He was 74.
Police said the cause of
death was smoke inhalation.
Born Horace Eugene Johnston in Los Angeles,
Johns began his career in music as a dancer. He met Copland when he was 19 at a
New Year's Eve party in New York.
In 1952, the two began collaborating on an opera based on
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book by writer James Agee
and photographer Walker Evans that describes the lives of several Southern
sharecropper families during the Depression.
Copland composed the music
and Johns wrote the libretto.
The work was originally commissioned as a
television opera by NBC but was subsequently rejected by the network. The New
York City Opera performed it at its premier at City Center in April 1954, in a
short two-act version. The two later added a third act.
Johns had a
second career as a decorator of large parties. His company, Party Decorators,
was hired for the inaugural dinners for President John F. Kennedy and President
Jimmy Carter.
He is survived by a sister, Clarisse Morse, of Los Angeles,
and a cousin, Jay Lindsay, of East Fishkill.
© andante Corp. December 2001. All rights reserved.
