Score for Act One 'The Hanging Judge'

Score for Act One (133 pages) of the opera 'The hanging Judge' with music composed by Normand Lockwood and libretto by Russell Porter. Synopsis of act one typed on first page of score in black ink ' It is about noon on a Saturday morning in May 1861. A 'sociable' is about to begin out under the trees now in near leaf. There are trestle tables with food. The women scurry about, putting the final items on the tables and wory ing about those things woman worry about at such times. The men are clustered together in another group, discussing those things that men discuss. Today these are clouds in the conversation: that sumter has been fired on some days before they know. Then too, there is the problem of bardwell and his men who, gamblers, keepers of brothels, have made the town a terror to honest citizens. The better citizens under the leadership of one of their number, Raleigh, have called a mass meeting for the next day to organize themselves to fight the tough element. The actual occasion for the sociable is the arrival in town of the presiding elder for whom they are having this part.'