[3] Spratlan's efforts to interest another company in staging the work failed until, in January 2000, he raised funds to finance two concert performances of the opera's second act–"the second act is where most of the drama of the piece goes on," said the composer[1]–by the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, one at Amherst College and the other in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard's Paine Hall,[2] where the Boston Globe reviewer greeted it as "a strong piece that would prove compelling in a full production.
"[5] The Pulitzer citation noted that Spratlan had "created a theatrical world in which the characters were given distinct musical thumbprints that were meant to embody their personalities, and in which the dissonances and angularities of contemporary styles were linked with traditional dance, march and madrigal forms.
[2] Spratlan has described the musical style he employed as "'pan-tonal,' that is, mostly centered in certain keys or modes but fluid in moving among them" except for the use of 12-tone technique to represent the rigidity of the character of Don Basilio.
"[7] He continued: but a score as beautiful as Spratlan's reminds us that even if one might not care to dine on atonality for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, an occasional taste can be toothsome.
From a musical standpoint, Life Is a Dream is an imposing accomplishment, the more so in light of the bland pablum that has so often been tendered in stage works of more recent vintage.The New York Times music critic, Anthony Tommasini, gave the opera a positive review, writing:[9] ...no question, Life Is a Dream is an important opera, the rare philosophical work that holds the stage and gives singing actors real characters to grapple with.