"on a primal, Pucciniesque level, [An American Tragedy] hits the mark...There are vernacular songs and religious hymns to establish the all-American scene, lush verismo textures for the lovemaking, suave Gershwinesque tunes to convey upper classes at play, distorted genre pieces à la Shostakovish and Britten for public confrontations, and, at moments of maximum fright, bursts of Berg. There's also much that's individual; Picker's harmony flirts with traditional tonality without falling prey to cliché, his orchestration achieves both transparency and power, and his crowd scenes skillfully set solo voices against a booming chorus and a churning orchestra. It's a pleasure to listen to him put one idea in front of another; a twelve-tone composer in his youth, he retains the serialist's habit of working obsessively with a tight array of notes...The score is full of such careful touches...it's a serious, substantial piece."

Read More

"the opening night audience greeted the work as if it were a masterpiece...[Picker's] fourth opera, which the Met commissioned in 1997, is expertly made. His singable vocal lines are gathered in the kind of set pieces operagoers know and love — arias, ensembles and choruses...The orchestra writhes with dissonant agitation, and the vocal lines take on saving urgency. Similarly, the scene later in the opera when Roberta and Sondra each expresses her longing for Clyde in the same lines of text is engrossing music theater...Graham savored everything that's seductive and opulent in Sondra's music while moving the audience through her character's plight."

"The music is tonal and accessible, with lots of big arias to show off its principal characters, choral numbers for contrast, even dance music. ...Mr. Picker's deft musical scene changes gave the piece a cinematic flow."

Read More

"[T]he opera is accomplished, dramatically effective and thoroughly professional. Many composers...could learn from Mr. Picker's know-how about the theater. An American Tragedy...works as an opera. The cast seemed to relish singing Mr. Picker's opera... and whole stretches of Mr. Picker's score would not be out of place in a Broadway theater...[C]ritics and opera buffs who want the Met to do its part to make opera a living art form have to be heartened that it presented this work, and that an audience on Friday gave a prolonged ovation to a living composer."

Read More

"[Picker] is a natural opera composer, who is supremely comfortable writing for voice and who also — mirabile dictu! — knows how to write for orchestra so that it rarely drowns out the words."

"Tobias Picker is very much a man of the theater... An American Tragedy deserves to find a comfortable place in the permanent repertory. From the opening sweep of the orchestra it has a grandeur that is cinematic; a scene in which the wealthy Samuel Griffiths is introduced with his rich cronies is a passacaglia begun by tuba and carries with it just the right gravity and pomposity... the score is attractive and picturesque... A quartet with chorus after Clyde has been accused of murder is reminiscent of moments in Britten's Peter Grimes...opera lovers, I suspect, will be more than pleased with Mr Picker's well-crafted, well-scored opera... a very potent show...It's well worth seeing."

“A glittering cast led by Patricia Racette, Susan Graham, and Nathan Gunn revels in this rich, voice-friendly score, which is redolent of antecedents yet no less cleverly spun."

"Picker knows his way about the lyric stage...An American Tragedy may be the perfect modern opera for people who hate modern opera."

"An American Tragedy is a compelling mix of sex, religion and status... Picker's music has power."

"There's a moment early in Act II of Tobias Picker's new opera, An American Tragedy, when the elements of music, drama and stagecraft unite to create a scene of rare emotional power. Roberta Alden, the pregnant factory girl, sings an aria whose soaring melodic line evokes her longing and loneliness as she waits on the porch of her parents' home for her lover, Clyde Griffiths, to keep his promise and marry her. Meanwhile, the scene above shows him dallying with his socialite girlfriend, Sondra Finchley, on the dock of her summer house. As the two women's voices blend in a duet, they repeat the same words ("I feel like I've been waiting. A whole life waiting to be desired by someone like you S") with such starkly different meaning that the effect is wrenching. Such, at its best, is the impact of Picker's ambitious work, which had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night with a splendid cast and lavish production worthy of a project eight years in the making...a work of considerable merit."

"...the hero here is composer Picker.  He knows how to write emotionally searching arias constructed with lyrically declaimed lines and phrases that echo popular song. The orchestration is full of psychologically penetrating effects. ...The score's theatrical good sense is remarkable.... Few modern operas are paced as effectively as this."

"a marvelous duet for Roberta and Sondra (both in their separated worlds) singing of their love for Clyde provided one of those moments that only the lyric theater (music or dance) can offer, with two things going on at the same time but not the same place."