David Lang

I really would hate to live in a world where all of the good and virtuous things have to be done very cheaply.

I was sort of worried that maybe some of the board members would get mad at me, but actually several of the board members came up and thanked me.

We're at a time right now where maybe there's such a division and a distance between the people who have billions and billions of dollars and actually control the world and the people who only have $400 million.

I actually think the billionaires are trying to make the people who have $400 million feel really bad about themselves.

So it could be that it is a time when there are actually things that we can say together for a large group of people about how money can be better spent.

I really didn't know what people would think.

I thought I might get polite applause because I did spend a lot of time thinking about the libretto, and I thought there was something of a kind of essay-type narrative structure.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That's a good thing, I think.

It's kind of vaguely and indirectly making an argument that leads someplace.

And it could be that people could appreciate it and like it and enjoy it and have a good time with the music and not feel roused by it.

And people got very enthusiastic about it.

I was really, really, really excited that people enjoyed it that much.

I think the more people knew about Adam Smith, the more they came up and told me about things I missed or like, how come you didn't put in the pin factory?

I never got anyone who came up and said, you know nothing about economics.

Yeah.

which I was expecting.

So I was really happy about that.

Maybe those people just stayed away from me.

I knew I wanted, from the beginning, I wanted to end with the Debs because I felt like that's a strong pull.