Elmer Gantry is a 2007 American opera by Robert Aldridge to a libretto by Herschel Garfein based on the 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis of the same name.
[1] Elmer Gantry premiered in 2007 at the Nashville Opera, with a subsequent performance at Montclair State University in 2008.
The Naxos recording of the Florentine Opera Company's March 2010 production won two 2011 Grammy Awards.
[3] [4] The opera opens in a tavern where Elmer Gantry, captain of the Terwillinger College and Seminary football team, is regaling his friends, including roommate Frank Shallard, with tales of sexual exploits.
Elmer is distracted by Baines' beautiful daughter Lulu, who is engaged to Eddie Fislinger, the head of the campus YMCA.
With persuasion from Eddie and lustful thoughts toward Lulu, Elmer decides to accept the scholarship and fakes his conversion.
Eighteen months later while still in seminary, Elmer is hocking farm implements in a nearby town and having an affair with Lulu.
He encounters Sharon Falconer again whilst she is in Zenith campaigning the Elks' club to help build a "grand tabernacle".
Eddie learns of Elmer's endeavor with Falconer to build a tabernacle in Zenith and becomes overwhelmed with hatred and envy.
and Mrs. Baines visit the site and privately express their disapproval of the commercial nature of the tabernacle, while Lulu shows renewed romantic interest in Elmer.