A plot synopsis of John Harbison's opera The Great Gatsby can be found at http://www.schirmer.com/composers/harbison_gatsby_synopsis.html
The opera, with a libretto by the composer, is based very closely (perhaps too closely to be optimal theatre) on the famous novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. If one is going to see the opera, it is good preparation to read the novel, which is relatively short and pleasant to read. Soprano Dawn Upshaw read the novel four times as part of her preparation for the role of Daisy Buchanan.
May 9, 2002
In a review of the revival of Harbison's The Great Gatsby at the Met, Martin Bernheimer wrote: "Gatsby, unfortunately, wasn't great. At best a succe`s d'estime at its first performance here in 1999, it remains an ambitious failure. Harbison's own libretto, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's chronicle of the demise of the American dream, is fitful and banal. The score, a smart amalgam of melo-dramatic cliches and jazz-baby interpolations, is literally conservative to a fault. There are some clever orchestral interludes here, some pleasant flights of lyricism there, some well-wrought concertati in between. But the whole equals considerably less than the parts."
April 30, 2002
Associated Press review of revival "with some trims" at the Met
October 4, 2000
The Chicago Sun-Times gave a favorable review to the Chicago Lyric Opera's first performance of the work. "If we surrender our expectations for grand scale and follow Harbison into its moody, quiet heart, we will find an atmospheric universe where hopes and disappointments are as piercing yet evanescent as the coastal fog off Long Island."
December 27, 1999
The Wall Street Journal gave a generally favorable review to John Harbison's new opera The Great Gatsby, with especial praise for the music for characters Daisy and Myrtle and for the singing of the roles' interpreters Dawn Upshaw and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
The premiere performance of The Great Gatsby, the new opera by John Harbison, was reviewed favorably in the Boston Globe of December 22, 1999.
OTHER REVIEWS OF THE GREAT GATSBY
New York Post--Shirley Fleming
Quoted in the Boston Globe of March 24, 2000, conductor David Zinman, who lead the orchestra at the Aspen Festival through a reading of the opera before rehearsals began at the Metropolitan Opera, said: "I knew that it would get off to a rough start; some critics would mistrust John's accessibility. But there's no question in my mind that the opera will come into its own; the revival in Chicago will prove it. Eventually people will come to it; it's too good for them not to."