After receiving his diploma in 1933, Menotti travelled to Vienna, where he began working on his one-act opera Amelia al hallo. It was premiered in New York in 1936 and enthusiastically received. The Metropolitan Opera agreed to produce it the following season, and the National Broadcasting Company asked him to compose another opera for radio, the first such commission ever given. The result was The Old Maid and the Thief (1939), one of Menotti's most enduring works.
By this time...