Listening to the opera of The House Without a Christmas Tree - I'd heard a brief sample on YouTube and while I've never liked the songs of its composer, Ricky Ian Gordon, who was, for a short time, the flavor of the month with B'way gals, I chanced it. He clearly loves Mr. Sondheim, but this just kind of meanders along - occasionally you get the beginnings of a tune only for it to disappear in a miasma of musical notes. His orchestrations aren't great (presuming he did them), and kind of ape Michael Starobin. He wrote several operas, including The Grapes of Wrath.