At Washington National Opera, 20-minute operas are on the right track

The Washington National Opera's American Opera Initiative commissions work from young composers. This is a good thing. I am not completely ready to embrace its premise that the best way to start is by commissioning 20-minute operas, because I'm not sure exactly what writing a short-form piece proves about a composer's ability to write an evening-length work -- any more than short-story writers are all necessarily great novelists. But thanks to this program, the company is giving out four commiss...