John Corigliano has almost become world-famous, and for a composer of classical music who is living and breathing among us, that is rare indeed. Every day, his name grows more familiar; every day, his election by the musical gods (or at least the publicity men) is made clearer. Other composers vie for attention, and they have their audiences: Henryk Gorecki, for one, whose Third Symphony is a brisk seller in record stores. But it is Corigliano, an American nearing 60, who has commanded the stage this decade, and for reasons not entirely due to his music.

He achieved real name recognition in 1991 with the premiere in New York of his opera The Ghosts of Versailles. It created a global sensation; not in living memory had a contemporary work of classical music been so rapturously received. But The Ghosts of Versailles is not the only source of his fame; indeed, it may already have been eclipsed by the continuing success of his Symphony No. 1. The symphony, which debuted a year before the opera, has to do with AIDS.