by J. Robin Coffelt
Denton — There were plenty of moments in Friday’s performance of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera The Mother of Us All, directed by David Ward, when it was easy to forget we were hearing a student performance. The University of North Texas is home to the second-largest College of Music in the United States. (The largest is at Indiana University.) So listeners have been spoiled to expect fine performances. Listeners were reminded of the musicians’ youth, however, only through tells such as an unlined face emerging from under a gray-streaked wig. Their musicianship was...