on to become one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer. Its chamber opera format has made it particularly popular with smaller opera companies and conservatories. Notable US revivals include those at the Spoleto Festival USA (1980), the San Francisco Opera with Roberta Alexander as Anne Sexton (1980), Aspen Music Festival with Renée Fleming as Anne Sexton (1982), New York Opera Repertory Theater in New York City (1987), Center for Contemporary Opera in New York City (1996), Opera Theatre of St. Louis (1997), Peabody Institute (1999 and 2010), San Francisco Opera's Merola Program with the composer in the audience (2006), University of Maryland Opera Studio (2007), and the Juilliard School (2010). Although it has remained relatively unknown in Europe, Transformations had its UK premiere in 1978 performed by the English Music Theatre Company and was one of the featured operas of the 2006 Wexford Opera Festival in Ireland. The Wexford production, directed by Michael Barker-Caven, won the 2006 Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Opera Production. The continental European premiere, directed by Elsa Rooke, was given at the Lausanne Opera in June 2006. The original Minnesota Opera production was set in a mental hospital, a setting used in most of its revivals. However, the 2006 San Francisco production was set in an outdoor party in 1970s American suburbia, while the 2007 University of Maryland production was set in a 1970s nightclub (complete with a disco ball) and modelled on Studio 54. The opera was given a pop-art treatment, inspired by Klaus Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, when it was performed in 1980 at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts by San Francisco Spring Opera in a production designed by Thomas Munn and directed by Richard C. Hudson. Score Described by its composer as "An Entertainment in 2 Acts", the opera has a running time of approximately two hours and is scored for eight singers and an ensemble of eight to nine musicians. Voices: two sopranos, one mezzo-soprano, three tenors, one high baritone, and one bass-baritone. Instrumentation: clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, contrabass, electric harpsichord, electric piano, electric celeste, electric organ, and percussion. The musical style is eclectic with multiple references to American popular music, dance rhythms, and artists of the 1940s and 1950s. Roles and original cast Each of the singers in Transformations is referenced by a number on a casting grid (rather than a character name) and takes