Featured Book: Hallelujah Junction, continued

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Mr. Adams writes in Chapter 2, "From Help! to 'Let It Be'": "In the fall of 1967 we came forth with a show called 'Bach and the Beatles.' … Later in the same academic year, I undertook a far greater plan, six performances, also in the Leverett House dining hall, of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. The stage director was a senior, majoring in English and well known already for his acting abilities: John Lithgow. I shudder to think how the young singers in the cast responded to my musical direction. I knew nothing about opera or about theatrical producing, nor did I have a clue about the extremely delicate instrument that is a classical singer's voice. From my vantage point in front of the orchestra, the singers never seemed loud enough, and I urged them on with heroic gesticulations as if they were a brass band. Pulling it all together took more than two months. Between auditions, scaring up an orchestra, supervising musical and staging rehearsals, and even managing the publicity I nearly lost track of my other academic responsibilities." (p. 36)