Ann McCutchan and Mara Gibson are in the process of completing a new opera inspired by the novel The Devil’s Dream, by Lee Smith, who has granted us permission to adapt the book for musical treatment. Presumed to be roughly based on the country music powerhouse Carter family, Smith’s novel chronicles several generations, beginning in 1830 in a Virginia mountain holler.  Our opera is built on relationships and events in the first third of the book, reaching into the fourth generation. A key character in the first scene is Kate Malone, who was forbidden to play the fiddle due to the religious zealotry of her husband, Moses Bailey. Clashes within the marriage represent clashes between religion and music at the time and foreshadow similar, sometimes violent struggles (in different situations) in the next three generations until a kind of reconciliation occurs in the context of the budding recording industry, when the most musically talented members of the fourth generation secure a popular audience and country/gospel intertwine.