Changing Fortunes
BARRY SINGER assesses the legacy of Gian Carlo Menotti, whose Saint of Bleecker Street arrives this month at Central City Opera.
When Gian Carlo Menotti first surfaced, in 1937, as a twenty-five-year-old Italian-born prodigy from the shores of Lake Lugano in Lombardy, by way of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the world of American opera was waiting for him — or for someone, anyone like him. The Depression had taken down a number of America's major companies, including the Chicago Opera, and had pummeled the Metropolitan Opera to the brink of bankruptcy. Accessibility was suddenly a paramount concern within these infamously elitist institutions — accessibility in the populist sense of new social equality for potential ticket-buyers, but also in the hardcore marketing sense. American opera companies needed new operas they could sell
To read more Opera News
When Gian Carlo Menotti first surfaced, in 1937, as a twenty-five-year-old Italian-born prodigy from the shores of Lake Lugano in Lombardy, by way of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the world of American opera was waiting for him — or for someone, anyone like him. The Depression had taken down a number of America's major companies, including the Chicago Opera, and had pummeled the Metropolitan Opera to the brink of bankruptcy. Accessibility was suddenly a paramount concern within these infamously elitist institutions — accessibility in the populist sense of new social equality for potential ticket-buyers, but also in the hardcore marketing sense. American opera companies needed new operas they could sell
To read more Opera News
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário