On today's date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere performance of a new opera by Jack Beeson entitled "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines." As if to prove that everything IS "up-to-date" in Kansas City, even BEFORE this world premiere, this Missouri company could boast a long tradition of staging contemporary operas by American composers, and they continue to do so to this day. "Captain Jinks" was the sixth of some ten operas composed by Jack Beeson, who was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921. Beeson says the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera are to blame for his catching the opera bug. "When I was about 12," says Beeson, "the Met started regularly broadcasting on Saturday afternoons, and I was seduced. With what spending money I had, I bought scores, and I would place the score up on the piano, and with a little radio on the piano and a big radio across the room, I would accompany the Met." In addition to "Captain Jinks," some of Beeson's other operas include, "The Sweet Bye and Bye" from 1957, "Lizzie Borden" from 1965, and "Sorry, Wrong Number" from 1999. In addition to his career as an opera composer, Beeson taught for many years at Columbia University in New York City, mentoring hundreds of his composition students.