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THE CAPITALISTIC MACHINE AGAINST A RADICAL INDIVIDUAL

Such mixed early results did not discourage Blitz- the culprits, and authorities soon began trolling local
stein. With one minor success and several near misses Italian immigrants in hopes of catching the robbers.
behind him, the composer sensed that he needed to While not originally under investigation, Nicola Sacco
write a new stage work: a choral opera. Blitzstein set- (a shoe trimmer) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (a fi shmon-
7
tled on the idea early on, noting simply in his sketch- ger), themselves anarchists and associates of political
book, “new opera—one act, 4 choruses (16 each), full dissidents from the Italian immigrant community, re-
orchestra.” 8 sponded vaguely to questions regarding the robbery. A
Thematic inspiration came later, after Blitzstein search during the interrogation revealed that both men
set sail for France to visit his partner and future wife, carried handguns, hidden within their clothing. This
the author Eva Goldbeck. While aboard the ship, the aroused the suspicion of the authorities, who indicted
composer encountered a group of suspected commu- Sacco and Vanzetti for the robbery and murders.
nist deportees. Blitzstein, whose own progressive ideals The trial commenced May 1921, with Judge Web-
and sympathy toward working-class concerns would ster Thayer, a noted anti-anarchist, personally request-
later inspire him to join the Communist Party, jotted his ing to try the case. Defense attorney Fred Moore, a
thoughts in a letter to his sister, dated August 9, 1931: California socialist who raised the ire of Thayer for
“The idea for the opera has burst upon me. It is, I say his political views and his constant grandstanding,

with confidence, a wow. Everything fits, and it is a great represented Sacco and Vanzetti. As prosecutor Fred-
chance for me, although it does at the moment appear erick Katzmann questioned the pair concerning their
that only Soviet Russia would be willing to perform anarchist beliefs, Moore perceived the courtroom’s
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it.” Blitzstein elaborated the next day: insurmountable prejudice. Choosing instead to em-
phasize the duo’s humanity, Moore’s defense depicted
Sacco and Vanzetti as innocent immigrants on trial for
“What strikes me most about the idea I have
for the new opera is the perfect way everything their anarchist radicalism, rather than for the crime at
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fits my original form….I note I have not yet hand. His tactics made no impact on the jury who,
told you the theme. It is a variation on Sac- after just a few hours of deliberation, found the pair
co-Vanzetti: the morning of the execution guilty. Despite several appeals, multiple requests for a
of a man convicted falsely of murder, with a new trial, and the confession of a death-row inmate
background of the capitalistic machine against who claimed that the pair did not participate in the
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a radical individual. The man, his wife, the crime, the state executed Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927.
warden, and the priest are the characters, each The event has been described as “[haunting] the
played by a chorus.” 10 American political psyche, an anguished presence hov-
ering above the nation’s conscience like an incubus at
the witching hour.” Famous intellectuals, including
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Albert Einstein and H. G. Wells, voiced sympathy with
Sacco and Vanzetti Sacco and Vanzetti, and numerous groups condemned
While the idea of a choral opera represented a sin- the trial’s outcome. As such, most on the political left
gular innovation on the part of Blitzstein, he was not saw the duo as “innocent dreamers,” working-class
15
alone among artists in recognizing the importance martyrs devoured by a rigged court system. Those
of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial as a watershed social sharing this view accepted a few key points: fi rst, that
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event. The armed robbery of a Boston-area shoe fac- the trial was motivated by prejudice against immigrants
tory on the afternoon of April 15, 1920, set into motion and political radicals; second, that the pair were actual-
a series of events that would later dominate headlines. ly innocent, the evidence having been planted by a cor-

During the heist, a pair of gunmen stole thousands rupt prosecution; and finally, that Sacco and Vanzetti,
of dollars of payroll money, killing two employees as anarchists, would have sympathized with the larger
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before fleeing the scene. Witnesses could not identify world socialist and communist movements.

34 CHORAL JOURNAL June/July 2021 Volume 61 Number 11