CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN SEPTEM BER-OCTOBER, 1967 COS NATIONAL CONFERENCE—APRIL 11-12, 1968, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera Service • Lincoln Center Plan • Metropolitan Opera • New York, N.Y. 10023 • 799-3467 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE COMMITTEE R. L. B. TOBIN, National Chairman The National Council JULIUS RUDEL, Co-Chairman New York City Opera National Council Directors MRS. AUGUST BELMONT MRS. FRANK W. BOWMAN GEORGE HOWERTON E. H. CORRIGAN, JR. ELIHU M. HYNDMAN MRS. NORRIS DARRELL MRS. JOHN R. SAVAGE HOWARD J. HOOK, JR. JAMES SCHWABACHER, JR. Professional Committee MAURICE ABRAVANEL RICHARD KARP Salt Lake City Symphony Pittsburgh Opera KURT HERBERT ADLER PAUL KNOWLES San Francisco Opera University of Minnesota VICTOR ALESSANDRO GLADYS MATHEW San Antonio Symphony Community Opera ROBERT G. ANDERSON MRS. LOUDON MELLEN Tulsa Opera Opera Soc. of Wash., D.C. WILFRED C. BAIN ELEMER NAGY Indiana University Hartt College of Music ROBERT BAUSTIAN MME. ROSE PALMAI-TENSER Santa Fe Opera Mobile Opera Guild MORITZ BOMHARD RUSSELL D. PATTERSON Kentucky Opera Kansas City Lyric Theatre JOHN BROWNLEE MRS. JOHN DEWITT PELTZ Manhattan School of Music Metropolitan Opera PAUL CALLAWAY GEORGE SCHICK Opera Soc. of Wash., D.C. Metropolitan Opera STANLEY CHAPPLE MARK SCHUBART University of Washington Lincoln Center EUGENE CONLEY MRS. L. S. STEMMONS No. Texas State Univ. Dallas Civic Opera WALTER DUCLOUX LEONARD TREASH University of S. California Eastman School of Music PETER PAUL FUCHS LUCAS UNDERWOOD Louisiana State University College of the Pacific ROBERT GAY GID WALDROP Northwestern University Juilliard School of Music BORIS GOLDOVSKY MRS. J. P. WALLACE Goldovsky Opera Theatre Shreveport Civic Opera WALTER HERBERT MRS. PAUL P. WILSON Houston Grand Opera Mid-South Reg. Director LUDWIG ZIRNER University of Illinois The Central Opera Service is pleased to announce the new (September 1967) Edition of the List of Opera Producing Companies and Workshops in the United States and Canada. Also available is a Supplement, listing companies by categories (Major, Professional, Summer, Touring, and Workshops, with two or more productions) indicating the number of annual productions and performances. The Central Opera Service Bulletin is published bi-monthly for its members by Central Opera Service. Permission to quote is not necessary but kindly note source. We would appreciate receiving any information pertaining to opera and operatic production in your region; please address inquiries or material to: Mrs. Maria F. Rich Central Opera Service Bulletin Editor Lincoln Center Plaza Susanne M. Low Metropolitan Opera Ass't to the Editor New York, N.Y. 10023 Extra copies of this issue: $1. Back issues available for $1; Special Translation Issue: $2. CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN Volume 10, Number I September-October, 1967 NEW OPERAS AND PREMIERES AMERICAN OPERAS The phenomenon of women composers in opera is still a rarity, although within recent years, a few American women have emerged successfully (Radie Britain, Mary Caldwell, Joyce Barthelson, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Eusebia Hunkins, Beatrice Laufer, Jeanellen McKee, Julia Perry and Julia Smith). Margaret Gar- wood, faculty member of the Philadelphia Musical Academy since 1953 and of the Settlement Music School of Philadelphia since 1960, has had many of her compositions performed. She has just finished her first opera, THE TROJAN WOMEN, a one-act, 40-minute work. Commissioned by the Suburban Opera Company in Chester, Pa., the company will present the premiere on October 22. The libretto, by Howard Wiley, was originally conceived in cantata form and is included in a book of his poems. Yet another new Canadian opera on a historical subject was presented in May during the Canadian centennial celebrations. THE LOYALISTS, composed by Douglas Major who is assistant conductor with the New Brunswick Symphony and with libretto by Mrs. Frances Parkhill and John Holmes, depicts the plight of the British colonists disfranchised by the American Revolution. The first performance took place in St. John, New Brunswick, on May 18. The May-June 1966 Bulletin reported on four operas commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Company for this year's celebration. At that time titles and details were not available although the subject matter, Canadian history, was specified. Here is the information in brief: Murray Adaskin's GRANT, WARDEN OF THE PLAINS, with libretto by Winnipeg's poetess Mary Bayer, premiered in May on CBC, with the hero, half Scottish, half Indian, telling the story of the 1816 massacre of Seven Oaks. — Kelsey Jones' SAM SLICK, with libretto by Mrs. Jones, premiered in July by CBC (live performance see June 1967 Bulletin) concerns the colorful Yankee clockmaker, peddler and rogue who set- tled in Nova Scotia. — THE BR1DESHIP, by Robert Turner with libretto by George Woodcock, was produced and sent over CBC from Vancouver. A boat- load of one hundred brides sent from England to Victoria in 1862 during the Cariboo gold rush is the basis of the plot. — The last production in this series will be premiered in October and will feature WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE by Harry Somers {The Luck of Ginger Coffee). The libretto is by William Kil- bourn after the prize-winning biography The Firebrand. AMERICAN PREMIERES CROESUS by Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) was the fifteenth of twenty operas written by this prolific German composer. Although early records are incom- plete, the opera seems to have been premiered in Hamburg in 1711 and presented there again in a revised version in 1730. Alfred Loewenberg's Annals calls it "One of Reiser's best works" but information of further performances is scant and indicates that there has not been an American production. On December 5 Newell Jenkins will present the complete three-act opera in concert form in German at Town Hall, New York, in which appears to be the American premiere of Croesus. Musical materials will have to be returned to Germany immediately — 1 — following the performance for a new production of the opera in Wuppertal later this season. Haydn's ORLANDO PALAD1NO (premiered in Austria in 1782) is another opera which enjoyed great success in its day, but which never reached these shores. Austrian born musicologist Karl Geiringer, whose books include one on Haydn, has prepared a new edition of the opera. A reading of excerpts was held in Boston in 1961. Now Dr. Carl Zytowski, Mr. Geiringer's colleague on the music faculty at the University of California in Santa Barbara, has written an English translation of the libretto. The opera will have its first American performance in Santa Barbara on December 1. Further performances are scheduled for the fol- lowing two days, coinciding with a meeting of the American Musicological Society at the University. Dr. Zytowski will also function as stage director and sing the title role. The Little Orchestra Society's season will again feature operas not previously heard in New York. In fact, two of the four operas will be presented in American premieres, Busoni's TURANDOT, and Orff's ANTJGONAE, while Janacek's THE MAKROPOULOS AFFAIR will be a New York first.—New York's other concert-opera organization, the American Opera Society, performing at Car- negie Hall, is concentrating this season on rarely heard early operas, although no first performances are included. FOREIGN PREMIERES It seems only natural that Germany, the country with the greatest number of opera houses per capita, will include premieres of operas by non-German com- posers (e.g., The Visitation by American Gunther Schuller and Die Doppelgan- gerin by Meyerowitz). In January 1968 the Bavarian State Opera in Munich will give the first performance of A PENNY FOR A SONG by British composer Richard Rodney Bennett, whose most recent success was The Mines of Sulphur, The new opera will be directed by Gunther Rennert and conducted by Christoph Dohnanyi, son of the composer. During the "Week of Contemporary Opera" in April 1968, the Bayrische Staatsoper plans to present a new opera, yet unnamed, by Hans Werner Henze with a libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann and the premiere of KING UBU by Krzysztof Penderecki. Munich's Theater am Gartnerplatz will perform the premiere of Mark Lothar's DER WIDERSPENST1GE HEILIGE. — Penderecki can look forward to another German premiere when the Hamburg State Opera will perform his THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN (after Huxley) in the Spring of 1969. Also in Hamburg will be the premiere of British composer Humphrey Searle's HAMLET (designs by Theo Otto and directed by William Schuh) and German composer Giselher Klebe's DIE JUNGFRAU VON ORLEANS. Klebe was recently introduced to American audiences when the Hamburg company brought his Jacobowsky and the Colonel to New York. Be- sides the Joan of Arc theme, he is also working on Goethe's MAERCHEN, commissioned by the Siiddeutsche Rundfunk. The first performance is planned during the 1968 Rhein-Schwetzingen Festwochen. Rudolf Mors, conductor in Bielefeld, Germany, is the composer of VINETA, an opera to be premiered in Bielefeld later this season. Die Biihnen der Landes- stadt in Kiel, Germany, will present a new opera by Dieter Schonbach, DIE SIEBEN STATIONEN VOM STERN and in March 1968, the Wurttemberg Staatsoper in Stuttgart will produce Carl Orff's PROMETHEUS, originally scheduled for last season.—The German Opera Studio in Berlin gave an experi- mental presentation of two short operas by Viennese, avant-garde composer Gerhard Lampersberger, DESPERATO, a ten-minute piece and DIE FAHRT ZUR INSEL NANTUCKET, a pop art opera with syllables replacing an intel- ligible text. The third work on the program presented in May was Martinu's Zweimal Alexander. This Spring a triple bill of contemporary operas was seen in Trieste. It featured the premieres of Giulio Viozzi's LA GIACCA D ANN AT A and Mario Buganelli's UNA DOMENICA and included de Banfield's ALISSA.— The Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa gave the first performance of Chailly's VASSILIEV.