make any headway. Young Sam wearily suggests going to the movies – some new musical about Tahiti. Dinah ruefully agrees. Mourning the lost magic between them, they seek out the "bought-and-paid-for" magic of the silver screen. Old Sam remembers... Act 3 Dede is up early the next morning, weeding in her mother's once-splendid, now overgrown garden. She senses Dinah's unseen presence and speaks to her, remembering when they were close. Junior, in high spirits, appears with breakfast. Brother and sister play games remembered from childhood and reenact their parents' quarrelsome breakfasts. François joins them in the midst of a tag game, and in another trio of remembrance – for which time stands still – they relive the first meeting of Dede and François some 10 years before. Now Old Sam appears in the garden and the game of tag resumes. It ends when Sam decides that rather than be tagged by François, he will open his arms to him and welcome him to the family. Sam reads aloud from Dinah's diary. The last entry he reads starts everyone giggling, and they release some of their sadness in shared laughter. The kids tell Sam they are thinking of staying on a few days, and all four euphorically imagine the joys of being together – until a little disagreement becomes a vicious argument. At its climax Junior hurls Dinah's diary into the air, and everything they have achieved since the debacle at the funeral parlor falls down around them. They stop, their anger spent, and look at the pages of the diary scattered on the ground. Thinking of Dinah and of her words, they recognize, one by one, that they can learn to communicate – indeed, that they must – as difficult as it will be for them. They reach out once again to one another. Recordings Deutsche Grammophon 419 761-2: Beverly Morgan, Wendy White, Peter Kazaras, Chester Ludgin, John Brandsetter, Edward Crafts; Jean Kraft, Louise Edeiken, Kurt Ollmann, Mark Thompsen; Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor Decca John Tessier (tenor), Maija Skille (mezzo-soprano), Claudia Boyle (soprano), Steven Humes (bass), Gordon Bintner (baritone), Annie Rosen (mezzo-soprano), Lucas Meachem (baritone), Joseph Kaiser (tenor), Daniel Belcher (baritone), Rupert Charlesworth (tenor) Choeur de l'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Montreal Symphony Orchestra Kent Nagano Recorded: 2017-05-17 References Operas by Leonard Bernstein English-language operas Operas set in the United States 1983 operas Operas Opera world premieres at