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Opera review

NEC’s ‘Paul Bunyan’ is as big as all America

By Jeffrey Gantz

 |  Globe Correspondent  

  April 16, 2012

Paul Bunyan might seem an unlikely subject for an opera — particularly an opera written by two Brits when they were living in Brooklyn. Actually, what Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden turned out more than 70 years ago was an operetta to be sung by high school students. Neither Paul nor Babe even appears onstage; that could explain why “Paul Bunyan” was a flop when it premiered at Columbia University in May 1941. But Stephen Lord, director of opera studies at New England Conservatory, believes in this work, and the NEC production he’s leading makes a powerful case for it.

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