CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN Volume 19, Number 2 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Opera Service • Lincoln Center • Metropolitan Opera • New York, N.Y. I0023 • (2I2) 799-3467 Sponsored by the Mefropolftait Opera National Council Central Opera Service * Uficob Center * Metropoftfan Opera » New Tori, MX 10023 « (21?) 799446? CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE COMMITTEE Founder MRS. AUGUST BELMONT Honorary National Chairman ROBERT L. B. TOBIN National Chairman ELIHU 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 BELGARIAN 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 John F. Kennedy Center PETER PAUL FUCHS LEONARD TREASH Louisiana State University Eastman School of Music ROBERT GAY GIDEON WALDROP Northwestern University 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: $6.00 Regular news issues $2.00 CENTRAL OPERA SERVICE BULLETIN Volume 19, Number 2 Winter, 1976/77 DIRECTORY of SELECTED OPERA FILMS Available from American Distributors This is the eleventh annual Directory issue of the COS Bulletin. Other original COS Directories include the two-volume Directory of Operas and Publishers (abt. 3,000 operas), three Directories of American and Foreign Contemporary Operas 1967, 1969, and 1975, the Directory of Sets and Costumes for Rent, Directory of English Translations, Directory of Opera Companies and Workshops in the U.S. and Canada, and Opera Repertory U.S.A. (A price list of COS publi- cations is available upon request.) Regular issues of the quarterly COS Bulletin feature news reports and articles pertaining to all phases of opera and include listings of all opera performances in the U.S. and Canada through- out the year. Black vinyl, gold embossed binders holding 8-10 issues of the COS Bulletin are also available. INDEX Preface 1 How to Use this Directory 2 Abbreviations 3 Composers and Operas (Section A) 5 Arias and Ensembles in Concerts and Festivals (Section B) 27 Biographical Films, exclusive of composers (Section C) 29 Educational Films (Section D) 31 Films with Study Guides (Appendix 1) 35 Biographical Films of Composers (Appendix 2) 35 Film Series Within this Directory (Appendix 3) 36 Code to American Film Distributors (Appendix 4) 37 Operas by Titles (Appendix 5) 40 PREFACE In education as well as entertainment, films have played an increasingly important role. Opera, a visual and dramatic as well as musical art, naturally lends itself to cinematic form, as is evidenced by the number of opera films which have been produced from the silent film era to the present day. Many of these films are, unfortunately, difficult or impossible to obtain, but many visually and musically excellent films are easily available at little or no cost. These films can be valuable aids to the teacher in classes, from introductory through advanced levels, dealing with music, literature, foreign languages, history, theatre, or general humanities. They can also be very useful to fund-raisers and program planners of opera guilds, music societies, community centers, churches, film societies, or other organizations. This guide was compiled to facilitate the selection of readily available films for rental at reasonable cost. As its title indicates, this guide is a selection, and makes no attempt to list every opera film ever made. To have done so would only have made more complex the task of its prospective user. Therefore, many films known to exist, but unavailable for distribution or difficult to obtain are not included. For instance, various films made for educational television are listed, but the NET Opera Theatre Productions are not available for distribution and have, therefore, been omitted. The same is true of films available exclusively from foreign distributors. A partial list of these may be found in Films for Music Educators and Opera Films (1962) and Music in Film and Television: Inter- national Catalogue 1964-1974 (1975), both compiled by the International Music Centre in Vienna and published by UNESCO. I have listed all films which I know are available and have made no recommendations on specific films. The user need only check the italicized description beneath a film's title, the running time, and the information regarding language of performance and existence of subtitles, dubbing, or narration to decide whether it is appropriate for a particular audience. Opera on film can be the next best thing to actually attending a performance; for many viewers it may be the first or only means of seeing an opera. These films can be creative works of art, valuable teaching tools, and aids to fund-raising and program planning, as well as highly enjoyable forms of entertainment. I hope this guide will make it easier for many more people to use and enjoy them. Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation to all those who helped in this project. Robert Tuggle of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Margaret Everitt and Edward Corn of the Metropolitan Opera Association were the persons who identified the need for this catalogue and asked me to prepare it. Bob Leverone of the American Film Institute gave me the initial list of people to contact for information, and Maria Rich and Jeanne Kemp of Central Opera Serrice edited the material and provided the publishing structure. Support, publication and distribution assistance has come from the National Endow- ment for the Humanities, Central Opera Service, and the Metropolitan Opera Guild. ROBERT GLICK University of Maryland — 1 — HOW TO USE THIS DIRECTORY The films in this guide are divided into four categories: composers and operas, arias and ensembles in concerts and festivals, biographical films, and educational films. Films belonging to more than one category have been cross-listed and five appendices have been devised for maximum clarity and utilization of this directory. Section A, Composers and Operas, contains complete, abridged, and excerpted versions of operas. Films are listed alphabetically by composer, and each composer's operas are listed alphabetically by title. Complete versions are listed first, followed by abridged versions and excerpts. Unless otherwise indicated the version is complete, except perhaps for customary cuts. Biographical films about the composer, arranged alphabetically by title, follow the opera listings. Each entry follows this form: COMPOSER Title of Opera Descriptive Comments Language (subtitles) Producer, Director or producing organization date, B&W/C, film size, running time Orchestra/Conductor distributor (s) Cast If the title of the film is different from the opera, the opera title is followed by a slash and the film title in quotation marks. If a role is being played by an actor with a voice-over by a singer, the actor's name is followed by a slash and the singer's name. Information in the right-hand column of each entry should aid in selecting films: infor- mation on language, narration, subtitles and running time, together with the italicized comment will indicate the suitability for a particular audience; film size must be matched with available equipment; and distributor's codes will direct the user to sources for ordering the film. The key to distributors' names and addresses is in Appendix 4. Section A also includes references to excerpts from operas included in films listed in other sections, and is cross-referenced in Appendix 5 by opera title. Section B, Arias and Ensembles in Concerts and Festivals, lists films which contain opera excerpts as part of a filmed concert. No composers are named; films are arranged alphabetically by title, otherwise information is in the same format as Section A. Section C, Biographical Films Exclusive of Composers, contains film biographies of operatic personalities other than composers, and fictional biographies of opera singers. Films are listed alphabetically by subject, and each entry follows the format of Section A, except that the subject's name replaces the composer on the first line. (Composers' biographies are included in Section A.) Section D, Educational Films, contains only educational films devoted to specific aspects of opera or to opera as an art form. Sections A, B, and C should also be consulted by educators, since they include such films as biographies and analyses of specific operas. These can easily be identified by the italicized description below the title. As a further aid to teachers, Appendices 1-3 identify specific film groups. Films in Section D are arranged alphabetically by title and follow the format of Section B. — 2 — Five appendices follow Section D. Appendix 1 lists films in the directory for which a study guide is known to exist. Appendix 2 identifies the composers represented by one or more biographical films in Section A. Appendix 3 lists alphabetically the names of film series represented in this guide and the individual titles of the films.