Word: blitzstein
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...word "opera" would be box-office poison-or so the producers of Composer Marc Blitzstein's Regina decided when it opened on Broadway four years ago. They labeled Regina a "musical drama," and invited the drama critics as well as the music critics to review it. The drama critics, whose notices are the ones that count at the Broadway box office, came and shook their heads; Blitzstein's musical version of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes seemed to them an unnecessary intrusion on a fine play. Regina ran for 56 performances, then gave...
Last week, at Manhattan's busy City Center, Regina came back with a bang and a burst of bravos-and as opera unashamed. Composer Blitzstein had trimmed down the spoken dialogue in his libretto, tightened up the orchestration, and included three musical episodes which were dropped in the pre-Broadway tryouts of the old production. The result still showed a slight tendency to be musically episodic, but the opera more than made up for this with its sharp scoring for a set of characters more real and gutty than most modern opera can lay claim...
...rapacity of Regina Hubbard and her scheming brothers gives Blitzstein a chance to point up their bile-laden words with incongruously sweet sounds, and he makes the most of it-as when Regina sings a waltz with such words...
Four-Day Whirl. In Brandeis' canvas-topped amphitheater, he whirled through four days & nights of conducting (his own opera. Marc Blitzstein's new English adaptation of Kurt Weill's Three-Penny Opera, a dance work and a symphony concert) and leading discussions on theater, films, jazz and the relation of music to society ("Do we really need or want" the concert hall...
...Blitzstein's concert-version adaptation of the late Kirt Weill's "Threepenny Opera" will receive a premiere performance on Saturday evening, June...