CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN WINTER, 1972 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera Service • Lincoln Center Plaza • Metropolitan Opera • New York, N.Y. 10023 • 799-3467 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera Service • Lincoln Canter Plaza • Metropolitan Opera • New York, NX 10023 • 799.3467 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE COMMITTEE ROBERT L. B. TOBIN, National Chairman GEORGE HOWERTON, National Co-Chairman National Council Directors MRS. AUGUST BELMONT MRS. FRANK W. BOWMAN MRS. TIMOTHY FISKE E. H. CORRIGAN, JR. CARROLL G. HARPER MRS. NORRIS DARRELL ELIHU M. HYNDMAN Professional Committee JULIUS RUDEL, Chairman New York City Opera KURT HERBERT ADLER MRS. LOUDON MEI.LEN San Francisco Opera Opera Soc. of Wash., D.C. VICTOR ALESSANDRO ELEMER NAGY San Antonio Symphony Ham College of Music ROBERT G. ANDERSON MME. ROSE PALMAI-TENSER Tulsa Opera Mobile Opera Guild WILFRED C. BAIN RUSSELL D. PATTERSON Indiana University Kansas City Lyric Theater ROBERT BAUSTIAN MRS. JOHN DEWITT PELTZ Santa Fe Opera Metropolitan Opera MORITZ BOMHARD JAN POPPER Kentucky Opera University of California, L.A. STANLEY CHAPPLE GLYNN ROSS University of Washington Seattle Opera EUGENE CONLEY GEORGE SCHICK No. Texas State Univ. Manhattan School of Music WALTER DUCLOUX MARK SCHUBART University of Texas Lincoln Center PETER PAUL FUCHS MRS. L. S. STEMMONS Louisiana State University Dallas Civic Opera ROBERT GAY LEONARD TREASH Northwestern University Eastman School of Music BORIS GOLDOVSKY LUCAS UNDERWOOD Goldovsky Opera Theatre University of the Pacific WALTER HERBERT GIDEON WALDKOh Houston & San Diego Opera Juilliard School of Music RICHARD KARP MRS. J. P. WALLACE Pittsburgh Opera Shreveport Civic Opera GLADYS MATHEW LUDWIG ZIRNER Community Opera University of Illinois See COS INSIDE INFORMATION on page seventeen for new officers and members of the Professional Committee. 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, Editor Central Opera Service Bulletin Lincoln Center Plaza New York, N.Y. 10023 Copies this issue: $1.00 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN Volume 14, Number 3 Winter, 1972 NEW OPERAS AND PREMIERES AMERICAN OPERAS American "ragtime" composer Scott Joplin wrote one opera, TREEMONISHA, which, at the time of its completion in 1911, received a partial reading in New York. The Texas-born composer died in New York in 1917 at the age of 49. His music is now being rediscovered and the first complete, staged performance of Treemonisha was presented on January 27, in cooperation with Morehouse College, at the Atlanta Arts Center. Robert Shaw conducted the Atlanta Symphony and Katherine Dunham staged and choreographed the work; the soloists included Alpha Floyd, Louise Parker and Simon Estes. The N. Y. Public Library is in the process of publishing Joplin's complete works with Volume I devoted to his piano music and Volume II to vocal compositions. Performances of the works are licensed through ASCAP. Treemonisha is also on the summer schedule of the Wolf Trap Festival. THE ARTIST is a multi-media theatre piece with music by Paul Reif, libretto by Kenneth Koch and visual realization by Larry Rivers. A dramatization of the life of an artist, it features his story as expressed by baritone Donald Gramm, excerpts from his journal conveyed by a mezzo soprano, and the actual creation of works of art on stage by The Artist, Larry Rivers. A Sprechchor will represent the public. Still and film projection will be part of the performance. Musical ac- companiment is scored for seven instruments. The performance will be on April 17 at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York presented by The Music at the Whitney in The Composers' Showcase Series. The Opera Theatre of the University of California in Santa Barbara will give the first performance of MIRRORS, a new "Theatre in Music" production, Composer Jeffrey Babcock collaborated with librettist Carl Zytowsky (director of the Opera Theatre) in creating the experimental piece which utilizes tapes and projection. A "total environment work" entitled A RAGE OVER THE LOST BEETHOVEN was performed by the Center of Creative and Performing Arts at the State Uni- versity of New York at Buffalo on February 19. The music for this satire is by Lejaren Hiller, the script by Frank Parman. A display of Beethoven artifacts pre- cedes the actual performance. The three-part story features personages around Beethoven and "exposes the cult of hero worship". JOSEPH AND HIS TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT is the latest of a number of "rock oratorio/operas" {Godspell, J. C. Superstar, Bernstein's Mass are some of the others). The 45-minute work, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice of Superstar fame, was premiered by Detroit's Overture to Opera in No- vember. Leonard Bernstein's MASS, which opened the John F. Kennedy Center last Fall, will be presented by Sol Hurok at the Metropolitan Opera House for four weeks beginning on June 26. Prior to its New York opening, it will be performed at the Cincinnati May Festival, followed by two weeks at the Kennedy Center in Wash- ington and one week at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It is scheduled for European premiere in Vienna in 1973. Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES seems a natural subject for a rock opera. The premiere of just such a work will take place in November '72 during the opening week of a new Performing Arts Hall at the University of Akron. — 1 — Steinbeck's short story, THE PEARL, has been adapted by Dawn Crawford for a one-act opera of the same title. Miss Crawford, a member of the music faculty at Dominican College in Houston, where the opera will be premiered in April, wrote the libretto as well as the music. THE ROCKET'S RED BLARE is a one-act parody by James Yannatos, first per- formed in May 1971 at Harvard University. Performances are licensed by BMI. A new children's opera after Lewis Carroll's poem THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK was recently premiered at the Whitney Museum in New York by the Systems Theatre, Inc. It was subsequently performed at Mannes College. The music is by Edwin Roberts, the libretto by Bill Tchakirides. Three Canadian composers have recently completed one-act operas. Norman Symonds wrote THE SPIRIT OF FUNDY on a commission from the Canadian Opera Company; the work will be taken on COC's annual tour to schools. The opera's central figure, Charles de la Tour, is of historical interest. He founded what is now known as St. John in New Brunswick. The action takes place in 1623 at the Bay of Fundy — Murray Schafer's third opera, PATRIA II: REQUIEMS FOR A PARTY-GIRL, will be premiered at Stratford on August 23. It is a chamber work incorporating live and electronic music. Excerpts were performed at New York's Shakespeare Theatre in January. Of the composer's two earlier operas, one was premiered by CBC in 1966 (Toi, Loving), the other at Tanglewood in 1967 (Gita). — Hungarian-born Canadian, Tibor Polgar, completed two one-act operas both as yet unperformed. A EUROPEAN LOVER and THE TROUBLEMAKER are available from the Canadian Music Centre, 33 Edward St., Toronto. Mr. Polgar's first opera, Kerok, was performed by the Budapest State Opera in 1954. AMERICAN PREMIERES The Santa Fe Opera, which has been responsible for many important Ameri- can premieres, announced that it will give the first U. S. performance of Aribert Reimann's MELUSINE this summer. The work was first heard last year at the Schwetzingen Festival, later produced by the Deutsche Oper which performed it in Berlin and in Edinburgh on tour. It will be produced in New Mexico on August 17 and 23. Christopher Keene will conduct, Bodo Igesz will direct and M. Jampolis will design sets and costumes. The cast will include Betty Allen, Jean Kraft, George Shirley and Michael Devlin. For its second summer season, the St. Paul Opera will again offer a premiere. This year it will be the first American performance of MASKARADE by Danish com- poser Carl A. Nielsen. The three-act comedy will be heard on June 23, 27 and 29 in an English translation by Dudley Glass; the original libretto is by Vilhelm Anderson. The opera had its world premiere in Copenhagen in 1906 and has enjoyed several European revivals. The first American premiere of the 1972-73 season will be offered by the San Francisco Opera on October 25. The work is Gottfried von Einem's DER BE- SUCH DER ALTEN DAME. Its world premiere at the Vienna Staatsoper last season was widely acclaimed with Christa Ludwig and later Astrid Varnay in the title role. In San Francisco, Regina Resnik will sing the Old Lady in an English translation by Norman Tucker. DOWN BY THE GREENWOOD SIDE by British composer Harrison Birtwistle was presented last summer at Tanglewood. The American premiere date was August 11; the production was sponsored by the Fromm Foundation. The work has a libretto by Michael Nyman after an Elizabethan Mummer's Play; it was conducted by Bruno Maderna. Among the earliest operatic composers is Pier Francesco Cavalli, whose Ormindo had its American premiere at the Juilliard School in 1968. It was heard in an adaptation by Leppard who is also responsible for a new arrangement of Cavalli's 2 LA CALISTO premiered at Glyndebourne in 1970. It will be presented by the College-Conservatory of the University of Cincinnati on April 12. The per- formance will open the new Patricia Corbett Pavillion.