Deborah Jowitt for Village Voice

Prepare for Saints

Flying High, Climbing Mountains, Coming Down

"An opera like the 1928 Virgil Thomson–Gertrude Stein Four Saints in Three Acts, whose third line is "It makes it well fish," begs serious inquiries into why the mystic Saint Teresa of Avila and the ex-knight Saint Ignatius should be canoodling. And Thomson's tart-sweet score coupled with Stein's rhythmic jittering produces an atmosphere of exalted children's games or a Baptist picnic. It seems perfectly reasonable that in heaven Saint Ignatius pushes the blissful Saint Teresa on a swing."