Opera Maine

The 2025 Studio Artist Program will present two performances of Paul’s Case, a two-act opera based on the short story By Willa Cather.

Paul’s Case follows a high school student living in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century. After getting expelled from school his father forces him to give up being an usher at Carnegie Music Hall, which he loves, and get a paying job. Feeling confined by his teachers, his father, and the dull middle-class life in Pittsburg, he steals the company’s weekend deposit and takes a train to New York City. He uses the money to buy a new wardrobe and books himself a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In the city Paul meets a freshman from Yale who takes him around the city. He is enthralled with the luxuries and excitement of city life, but it doesn’t take long for his escape to come to an end.