Central Opera Service Bulletin

CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN VOLUME 18, NUMBER 4 INDEX NEW OPERAS AND PREMIERES 1 MORE BICENTENNIAL OPERAS 1 POSTPONEMENTS AND CANCELLATIONS 3 AMERICAN PREMIERES 3 FOREIGN PREMIERES 4 NEW COMPANIES 6 OPERA ECONOMICS 7 OPERA COMPANIES: DEVELOPMENTS 9 NEW ARTS CENTERS 10 COS INSIDE INFORMATION 11 TRANSLATIONS 11 SETS AND COSTUMES FOR RENT 12 PERFORMANCE LISTING, 1975-76 conk 14 PERFORMANCE LISTING, Summer 1976 25 FIRST PERFORMANCE LISTING, 1976-77 33 ADDENDA TO 1976 DIRECTORY 45 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera Service • Lincoln Center • Metropolitan Opera • New York, N.Y. 10023 • (212) 799-3467 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera .Service • Lincoln Center • Metropolitan Opera • New York, N.Y, 10023 • (212) 799-3467 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE COMMITTEE Founder MRS. AUGUST BELMONT Honorary National Chairman ROBERT L. B. TOBIN National Chairman EUHU M. HYNDMAN National Co-Chairmen MRS. NORRIS DARRELL GEORGE HOWERTON Professional Committee KURT HERBERT ADLER DAVID GOCKLEY San Francisco Opera Houston Grand Opera PETER HERMAN ADLER BORIS GOLDOVSKY American Opera Center Goldovsky Opera Theatre VICTOR ALESSANDRO RICHARD KARP San Antonio Symphony Pittsburgh Opera ROBERT G. ANDERSON JOHN M. LUDWIG Tulsa Opera Spring Opera, San Francisco WILFRED C. BAIN GLADYS MATHEW Community Opera Indiana University RUSSELL D. PATTERSON GRANT BEGLARIAN Kansas City Lyric Theater University of So. California MRS. JOHN DEWITT PELTZ MORITZ BOMHARD Metropolitan Opera Kentucky Opera Association JAN POPPER SARAH CALDWELL University of California, L. A. Opera Company of Boston GLYNN ROSS TITO CAPOBIANCO Seattle Opera Association San Diego Opera JULIUS RUDEL ROBERT J. COLLINGE New York City Opera Baltimore Opera Company GEORGE SCHICK JOHN CROSBY Manhattan School of Music Santa Fe Opera MARK SCHUBART WALTER DUCLOUX Lincoln Center University of Texas ROGER L. STEVENS PETER PAUL FUCHS John F. Kennedy Center Louisiana State University LEONARD TREASH ROBERT GAY Eastman School of Music Northwestern University GIDEON WALDROP The Juilliard School Editor, COS Bulletin MARIA F. RICH Assistant Editor JEANNE KEMP The Central Opera Service Bulletin is published quarterly 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 productions in your region. Please address inquiries or material to: Central Opera Service Bulletin Met Opera, Lincoln Center New York, N.Y. 10023 Copies this issue: $2.00 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN Volume 18, Number 4 Summer, 1976 NEW OPERAS AND PREMIERES MORE AMERICAN BICENTENNIAL OPERAS The New York City Opera has scheduled the premiere of the previously announced HENDERSON, THE RAIN KING after Saul Bellow's book, for April 10, 1977. The opera will carry the title LILY. Leon Kirchner is the composer and this repre- sents his first operatic venture. He will conduct the first performance and Tom O'Horgan, of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar fame, will be the stage director. This will be the second time within two years that the City Opera is engaging Broadway theatre talent to stage opera — Harold Prince directed Tal's Ashmedai. In February San Francisco's Spring Opera Theater offered MEETING MR. IVES in celebration not only of the American Bicentennial, but also of the composer's 100th anniversary. The book and text are by Brendan Gill, a writer for the New Yorker, the musical arrangement by Richard Dufallo. The work was first heard last summer at the Lenox Arts Center in Massachusetts; the California performances represent the first ones by an opera company. Following are the premiere dates for two previously announced new works. The one is Richard Owen's MARY DYER, originally scheduled for a performance in Massachusetts in 1974 (see Spring '74 Blltn.). The true story of a Quaker woman hanged as a witch in 1660 was re-enacted on June 12, 1976 at Rockland Community College at Suffern, New York, with Lynn Owen, the composer's wife, in the title role. — Thomas Pasatieri's WASHINGTON SQUARE (see Fall '75 Blltn.) will enjoy its premiere by the Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit on October 1. Com- missioned by the company with a grant from the Michigan State Arts Council, it is scored for chamber orchestra and will feature Catherine Malfitano and Brent Ellis in leading roles. June 1st and 17th marked the dates of first performances of two new operas by Gian Carlo Menotti. The first, THE HERO, was performed by the Opera Com- pany of Philadelphia and is a satire on today's social values. The premiere featured Nancy Shade, Diane Curry and Dominic Cossa; the conductor was Christopher Keene. The second work, THE EGG, is a church opera. It was premiered at the Washington Cathedral on June 17 together with Menotti's Martin's Lie, the latter in an American first performance. Its only previous production was in Bath, England, in 1964, where it was presented in the Canterbury Cathedral. Hugh Aitkin's FABLES, based on Aesop in the de la Fontaine version, was given its first production at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, New York, on June 25, 1976. — A benefit evening for Dorothy Maynor's Harlem School of the Arts presented the premiere of J. Willard Roosevelt's one-act opera AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN. The concert took place in New York's Tully Hall on March 16, and also featured two dance pieces. The librettist is Loften Mitchell, the composer is a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. The Waldo Workshop Opera in Arlington, Virginia, commissioned the music- drama LIGHT HORSE HARRY LEE from composer Marvin Fewell. Co- sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society and the Arlington Bicentennial Commission, the premiere took place on June 18. Joyce Barthelson (Chanticleer, The King's Breakfast) has written both words and music for her first full-length opera. Based on the George Bernard Shaw story, THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE is set in New England during the Revolutionary War. Musical material is available from Carl Fischer, Inc. PASSION, POISON, AND PETRIFICATION, by Bruce J. Taub, was performed during an evening of the Composer's Ensemble at Carnegie Recital Hall on April 1, 1976. It is another G. B. Shaw original in an operatic adaptation. In February, Joseph Papp and his Shakespeare Festival Theatre presented APPLE PIE, a New Musical Theatre Piece, with music by Nicholas Meyers and a libretto by Myrna Lamb. This surrealistic 90-minute operetta consists of some thirty musical numbers dealing with various forms of prejudice. This Summer, the Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony in Eureka Springs, Ar- kansas, offered another new opera by its director, Isaac van Grove. It is entitled THE PRODIGAL — HIS WANDERING YEARS and the premiere took place in July. — Gerald Muller, Chairman of the Music Department at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, wrote JOSHUA which was performed in Washing- ton, D.C., (Lisner Auditorium) on July 8. Set in the War of 1812, its central character is Joshua Thomas, a preacher who lived in Chesapeake. Preview performances were held April 4-8 at the College. — THE DOLLMAKER, "An American Folk Opera" by Carol Schoenhard, was presented by the opera workshop at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Delaware, in January 1976. THE WISH MACHINE is a science-fiction story playing in the 21st century. Music is by Wilhelm Wodnansky, the libretto by M. Trace Johnson who may be contacted by prospective performing groups (15240 East Valley Blvd., City of Industry, California 91746). The two-hour opera is scored for chamber orchestra and six soloists with a baritone in the leading role. Carlisle Floyd has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to write an opera based on Robert Penn Warren's bestseller ALL THE KING'S MEN. The composer will write his own libretto after the political novel. — Another famous book, James Agee's A DEATH IN THE FAMILY, All the Way Home, is being transformed into an opera. William Mayer (Brief Candle, Hello World, One Christmas Long Ago) has received an NEA grant for the completion of the work, which is projected for Spring '77. The Summer Opera Workshop in Pittsburgh, directed by Richard Flusser, is presenting the "Red, White and Blue Festival". The premiere of a new American opera by Bruce Saylor, MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEAUX, is scheduled for August 28. — The University of Tennessee in Martin also presented a new opera. G. Carp's THE TENNESSEE WITCH was premiered on May 21. — Another operatic version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, this one with music by Chaul, could be heard in a first performance on January 16 at the Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys. Other world premieres on the West Coast included THE WALTZ KING by Paul Reale at UCLA on May 8 and John DeMerchant's THIN RAIN at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg on March 3. — The Fete at Coqueville, commissioned and premiered by the Fresno Opera as mentioned in the Fall '75 Bulletin, is by composer Alan Rea — not John; the libretto by Betty Iacovetti. On March 26, the New England Chamber Opera gave the premiere of Paul Earl's THE DEATH OF KING PHILIP. The one-act opera was presented on a double-bill with Selig's Chocorua, first heard in Tanglewood in 1972. Both operas were performed at the All Saints Episcopal Church with lighting and projections supervised by the Yale Drama School. — The Midland Repertory Players in Alton, Illinois, participated in the round of new American operas by presenting the first performance of Rigoni's THE RED DEATH on July 16. Besides the aforementioned Lily by Kirchner and Washington Square by Pasatieri, the 1976-77 season will see the following remaining new American Bicentennial Festival operas: Imbrie's ANGLE OF REPOSE in San Francisco (November 6), Kay's JUBILEE in Jackson, Miss., (November 20), Siegmeister's NIGHT OF THE MOONSPELL in Shreveport (November 14), Elaine Lebenbom's THE FEARSOME INN in Detroit (Piccolo Opera, Spring '77), and a children's opera, THE TOWN MUSICIANS OF BREMEN, composed by C.

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