Despite being described as an "opera in six acts," the chamber opera Rapunzel by Lou Harrison (b. 1917) is just a little less than one hour long and most composers would have described its acts (lasting from five and a half to fourteen minutes) as "scenes."

The opera is an intriguing mixture of Harrison's interest in spare, non-harmonic music with modern twelve-tone techniques. It is the work that most strongly proclaims that Harrison was a pupil both of Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg.

Harrison wrote the opera after he had ended his stay in New York City, which lasted for most of the 1940s. He became a music critic for magazines and the New York Herald Tribune to support himself.

In 1947, Harrison suffered a nervous breakdown and after a return to his hometown of Portland, OR, he accepted in 1951 an appointment to the Black Mountain College in North Carolina that was supposed to last only a summer, but stayed two years.

He wrote the opera at Black Mountain from August to October 1952. It is based on a psychological re-interpretation of the classic fairy tale by the nineteenth century English poet, designer, and socialist politician William Morris (1834 - 1896). Harrison says his opera was "self-analysis," exploring various feelings and insights that he gained during nine months of analysis and psychotherapy following his breakdown.

Rapunzel is scored for three singers and 20 players. In light of Harrison's later interest unusual and exotic instruments, it is worth noting that they play standard Western instruments.

By this time Harrison was well into the process of leaving behind his early style, which often used dense and complex counterpoint. Melodically, the work is serially organized, and is often highly chromatic.

However, except for moments of highest tension, the scoring remains light, without chords. The vocal part seems to be more chromatic than the instrumental parts.

The action of the opera begins at the point where the Prince has arrived on the scene and called for Rapunzel to "let down [her] golden hair." In Grimm's fairy tale, Rapunzel was a child won by a witch from an old couple in compensation for their having stolen vegetables from her garden. At the age of 12 the witch imprisoned Rapunzel in the tower, and can only see her by commanding the girl to let down her hair.

The action of the opera is as much commentary on the imagery of the tale than it is a retelling of it.

The first performance of music from the opera was performed in Rome in 1954, with Leontyne Price in the title role. It won the "twentieth century Masterpiece" Award for that year, which was conferred on Harrison by Igor Stravinsky.

Rapunzel's first staged performance was in 1959 at the Cabrillo Music Festival. It is dedicated to his old boss at the Herald-Tribune, his "friend and mentor" Virgil Thomson.

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