Art Talk: Art Talk: Who should get next year's new NEA Opera Aw...

Soprano Leontyne Price , conductor James Levine , composer Carlisle Floyd and administrator Richard Gaddes will be the i nitial recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors .

[Darth Criticus]

Since virtually every opera plot can be summed up with the phrase, "(Name of soprano here) dies," I think the opera award should be called The Mimis, after Mimi, the soprano who died in Puccini's "La Boheme," considered one of the three or four best operas ever written.
Perhaps it could be a statue of slightly overweight woman wasting away from consumption on a fainting couch...

[Genie]

John Harbison - yes!

I think the Mozarts would be a good name. Mozart died so young and was buried in a pauper's grave, and his operas were fun.