The New York Times ran an article last Saturday entitled, Colonial Ingénue Meets Modern Ingenuity, about “Flora,” a British ballad opera performed during the annual Spoleto Festival. The article reviews Flora and describes the renovations to the Dock Street Theater (it just reopened after a $19 million renovation) where the festival performances are taking place. Interestingly, Flora was also performed at the original Dock Street Theater when it first opened in 1736.

Here’s a excerpt from the review:

In a ballad opera, airs, often sung to popular tunes of the day, alternated with spoken dialogue. For “Flora” the libretto survives, along with at least two versions of the score. But those diverge in ways large and small, and even when the differences are reconciled, gaps remain.

The task of making “Flora” stageworthy fell to the composer Neely Bruce, a professor of music and American studies at Wesleyan University. In addition to ironing out discrepancies between the scores, he composed when he had to, supplying instrumental accompaniments, a missing song, an overture and other music to keep the work flowing.

And he did a remarkable job of it, evoking the musical world of the 18th century without aping period practice slavishly. Purcellian strains occasionally pop up amid the sounds of instruments that would have been available in Charleston in the 1730s or, in the case of the guitar, 1740s.

NYT also had reviews on their blog for Haydn’s puppet opera “Philemon and Baucis” and the American hymnal, “The Sacred Harp.” Apparently, the writer James Oestreich has been very busy while in Charleston. He also has a extended story about the Dock Street Theater on his blog and the Spoleto Festival.