The Ballad of Baby Doe The Ballad of Baby Doe The Ballad of Baby Doe is an opera by the American composer Douglas Moore that uses an English-language libretto by John Latouche. It is Moore's most famous opera and one of the few American operas to be in the standard repertory. Especially famous are the title heroine's five arias: "Letter Aria," "Willow Song," "I Knew it Was Wrong", "Gold is a Fine Thing", and "Always Through the Changing." Horace Tabor's "Warm as the Autumn Light" is also frequently heard. Distinguished sopranos who have portrayed Baby Doe include Beverly Sills (Moore's favorite interpreter of the role),
Baby Doe Tabor and refused to accept charity. Baby Doe lived like this for 35 years. During these years she wrote incessantly. In diaries, letters, and scraps she called "Dreams and Visions", consisting of about 2000 fragments later found bundled in piles of paper in her cabin, she wrote entries such as: "Nov. 26—1918 Papa Tabor's Birthday I owe my room rent & am in need of food and only enough bread for tonight & breakfast ... my shoes and stockings only 1 pair are in rags." An eyewitness described her in 1927 as dressed "in corduroy trousers, mining boots, and a torn