The Classical Style (opera)

The opera buffa genre is simply a way of exposing this absurdity, turning music inside out to reflect on itself, with hopefully hilarious and intriguing results.

"[7] Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times similarly called it an "illuminating, academic, occasionally combative, close study of the musical style of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven by a brilliant pianist and scholar who died in 2012.

"[9] Simon Williams of Opera News also praised the work, saying:At times the performance veered close to the sophomoric humor of an end-of-year fraternity or sorority review, but it never arrived there.

The opera is hugely entertaining, not least because Steven Stucky is a parodist of genius whose knowledge of the language of classical music over the past 250 years is astoundingly detailed and seemingly infinite.

[10]Scott Timberg of Arts Journal was more critical, however, admonishing the work for possessing "an oddly anti-intellectual batch of bad puns and inside jokes" and called it "a missed opportunity.

"[11] In July 2015 the Aspen Music Festival gave the first-ever complete staging of The Classical Style as part of a double bill with The Cows of Apollo by Christopher Theofanidis and William Hoffman.