An Adirondack Crime Opera(?) Debuts

Most everybody remembers Lizzy Borden, but how about Grace Brown and Chester Gillette? Back in July of 1906, Chester murdered his pregnant lover Grace Brown by drowning her in Big Moose Lake in the northern Herkimer County in the New York Adirondacks. At the time the murder and subsequent trial and execution created national interest.

The tragic story became the basis for Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel, "An American Tragedy," a saga subsequently spun into movies, television programs, plays, songs, true crime books — and a new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. "An American Tragedy," with music by Tobias Picker, premieres Friday.

Besides Dreiser’s novel, the most noted telling of this tale has been the film “A Place in the Sun” made in 1951. It starred Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelly Winters. It garnered 6 Oscars.

Up in the Adirondacks a number of events are planned for this summer to commemorate 100th anniversary of the events of 1906.

If anything else, it proves that Americans have always been intrigued by sensational crimes.

(Please note that from murder to execution of the murderer took just 20 months—July, ’06 to March, ’08)