Episode 9 - 1951: Douglas Moore, Giants in the Earth

Douglas Moore is a name we've encountered before on Hearing the Pulitzers because he was instrumental in helping establish the Pulitzer Prizes. A decade later, he finally won his own Pulitzer for an opera based on Ole Edvart Rølvaag's novel Giants in the Earth. The opera follows the triumphs and tragedies of Norwegian settlers in the Dakota Territories of 1873, but there isn't even a recording today and the score is hard to find. Is its obscurity warranted? If you'd like to learn more about Moore, we recommend: Jerry L. McBride's Douglas Moore: A Bio-bibliography The website dedicated to his more famous and much more performed opera The Ballad of Baby Doe