The Garden of Mystery
| The Garden of Mystery | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Charles Wakefield Cadman | |
Cadman in 1919 | |
| Librettist | Nelle Richmond Eberhart |
| Language | English |
| Based on | "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844) |
| Premiere | |
The Garden of Mystery is an English-language American opera in one act and three scenes. The composer was Charles Wakefield Cadman with a libretto by Nelle Richmond Eberhart. The opera was based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1844 short story "Rappaccini's Daughter".
The work premiered in a concert version at Carnegie Hall in New York City on March 20, 1925, with the American National Orchestra conducted by Howard Barlow. A staged performance did not occur until 1996.
Hawthorne's Gothic story about a doctor whose work with poisons has made his daughter's touch deadly has inspired several operas, including The Poisoned Kiss, or The Empress and the Necromancer (Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1936);' Rappaccini's Daughter (Margaret Garwood, 1980), and La hija de Rappaccini (Daniel Catán, 1991).