BOOTLEG FILES 117: “A Bayou Legend” (1981 made-for-TV all-black opera by William Grant Still).
LAST SEEN: In its 1981 PBS premiere.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR DISAPPEARANCE: Uncertain, but most likely due to music and performance rights clearances.
CHANCES OF SEEING A DVD RELEASE: Not likely in the near future.
Get the bootleg ni part two of THE BOOTLEG FILES: “A BAYOU LEGEND”>>>
Just a footnote to this interesting and important comment. The site HOUSE OF OPERA (http://store.operapassion.com/) has a CD copy of BAYOU LEGEND (called “Opera South 1979). The sound is not great but perfectly listenable, with little surface noise. It almost definitely was not recorded in the open, as evidently was the film. I can’t say anything precise about the cast, although the spirit does sound like what I know of Carmen Balthrop’s voice.
In any case, so far as I know this cd is the only version of the opera currently available.
I cannot, of course, say anything about the legality of the source of sale, except to say that HOUSE OF OPERA is a well-known site and probably operates fully within the law.