The start was typical: Oper Frankfurt in Germany asked John Cage to write an opera. But the premiere, in 1987, was unlike anything in opera up to that point. (Audience members also received varied plot synopses that read like opera Mad Libs.) The public wasn’t exactly equipped to receive what Cage had served them. Laura Kuhn, who runs the John Cage Trust and worked with him as he prepared “Europeras 1 & 2,” wrote in her dissertation on the piece that the reception in Frankfurt varied from “overt enthusiasm to no less overt bewilderment or disdain.”

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Persons: John Cage, Libs, Cage, Laura Kuhn, ” Organizations: Oper, John Cage Trust Locations: Oper Frankfurt, Germany, American, Frankfurt