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73-720: His idea of presenting free productions began in 1954 when he founded the Xavier Symphony Society, made up of volunteer performers. Gian-Carlo Menotti was so taken by La Selva's performance of The Saint of Bleecker Street , that Menotti had La Selva perform the piece at New York's City Opera. This led to his being hired to conduct the City Opera's orchestra full-time. La Selva founded the New York Grand Opera Company in 1973. Beginning in 1974, he performed complete operas at no charge to

146-763: A symphony , and stage plays. Notable among these are his cantata The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi , written in 1963, and the cantata Landscapes and Remembrances in 1976 – a descriptive work of Menotti's memories of America written for the United States Bicentennial . Also worthy of note is a small Mass commissioned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore , entitled Mass for the Contemporary English Liturgy . Menotti taught music composition on

219-585: A French language play which premiered in Paris in 1959. Music critic Joel Honig served as his personal secretary during the late 1950s. 1963 was a particularly busy year for Menotti. His television opera Labyrinth was premiered by the NBC Opera Theatre. Unlike Amahl and the Night Visitors , this opera was never intended to be transferred from television to the stage and was written with

292-812: A chalet in Santa Christina, Italy, and spent increasingly less time at Capricorn. Tensions grew between Menotti and Barber, leading Menotti to end their romantic attachment and put 'Capricorn' up for sale in 1970. Capricorn sold in 1972, and the two men remained friends after their romantic involvement ceased. In 1972 Menotti purchased Yester House , an 18th-century estate in the Lammermuir Hills , East Lothian, Scotland. He lived there until his death thirty-five years later. While there, he jokingly stated his Scottish neighbors referred to him as "Mr McNotti". In 1974 he adopted Francis "Chip" Phelan , an American actor and figure skater he had known since

365-601: A series of premieres commissioned in honor of the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence . The first of these was the cantata in nine parts for soloists, chorus and orchestra, "Landscapes and Remembrances," which premiered on May 8 in a performance by the Bel Canto Chorus and Milwaukee Symphony in Milwaukee. Filmed for national broadcast on PBS, the piece is Menotti's most autobiographical work with

438-579: A traditional giovane scuola Italian style. His last opera for adults, The Wedding Day , premiered in Seoul, South Korea, in conjunction with the 1988 Summer Olympics conducted by Daniel Lipton. In 1992, Menotti was appointed artistic director of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, a post he maintained for two years before being asked to resign over conflicts with the theatre's managers involving Menotti's insistence of staging Wagner's Lohengrin . In honour of

511-536: A vase over her husband's head. When the police arrive, she tells them that a burglar had entered the apartment and attacked her husband with the vase. Her husband is taken to hospital, her lover is arrested as the burglar, and Amelia leaves for the ball on the arm of the chief of police who has come to investigate. The full version of the score is orchestrated for three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion, celeste , xylophone, harp and strings. The score

584-732: A young Boris Goldovsky worked as assistant conductor. The double bill played later that month in Baltimore at the Lyric Theatre and at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City, with Florence Kirk taking over the title role at the latter theater. On May 2, 1937, excerpts from the Menotti opera, performed by the original cast with Levin conducting, were broadcast by CBS Radio as part of National Music Week in

657-583: Is the only one of Menotti's operas still to be published in its original or perhaps "complementary" Italian libretto (alongside the English): it is an example of the traditional romantic Italianate style, with a nod to Puccini , Wolf-Ferrari , and Giordano . The success of Amelia Goes to the Ball earned Menotti a commission to compose a radio opera for the NBC Radio Network , The Old Maid and

730-730: The 1958 Brussels World's Fair . Commissioned by Peter Herman Adler and the NBC Opera , the production moved to the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway in 1959 and was also filmed for a nationally televised broadcast on NBC. The cast remained constant throughout and included Neway, Ruth Kobart , Norman Kelley , William Chapman , and Richard Cross . Menotti founded the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto , Italy in 1958. His compositional output slowed as his duties as director of

803-474: The Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1947. This Broadway production also included Menotti's fifth opera, the short one act opera The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois , as a prelude to performances of The Medium . These operas became Menotti's first internationally successful works, notably receiving critically acclaimed productions in Paris and London in 1949 and later touring Europe in 1955 under

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876-595: The Santa Fe Opera and the New York City Opera the year after. In 1970 Menotti made the difficult decision to end his lengthy romantic relationship with Samuel Barber. Barber had battled depression and alcoholism following the harsh critical reaction to his 1966 opera Antony and Cleopatra which had a negative impact on his creative productivity and his relationship with Menotti.' Barber had already begun to self isolate for long periods of time at

949-545: The Saratoga Performing Arts Center under the baton of Eugene Ormandy . In 1977 Menotti founded Spoleto Festival USA , a companion festival to his Spoleto Festival (the other of its Two Worlds), in Charleston, South Carolina . For three weeks each summer, Spoleto is visited by nearly a half-million people. These festivals were intended to bring opera to a popular audience and helped launch

1022-507: The verismo tradition of opera in the post- World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School , Menotti's music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent. Like Wagner , Menotti wrote the libretti of all his operas. He wrote the classic Christmas opera Amahl and

1095-687: The 1948 ballet Errand in the Maze for the Martha Graham Dance Company , and wrote two screenplays for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which were ultimately never developed into films. He accepted a position teaching music composition on the faculty of the Curtis Institute in 1948, a post he remained in until 1955. His notable pupils included composers Olga Gorelli , Lee Hoiby , Stanley Hollingsworth , Leonard Kastle , George Rochberg , and Luigi Zaninelli . The 1950s marked

1168-675: The 1950s Amelia al ballo had a surge in popularity in Italy, with premiers at Teatro Comunale di Bologna (December 7, 1951), Teatro Regio in Parma (January 18, 1952), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (March 24, 1954), Teatro Regio in Turin (May 8, 1954), and Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (December 29, 1956), among others. The Spanish premiere was given at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on January 7, 1954,

1241-550: The 1980s, but then softened as tastes shifted away from serialism and the avant-garde towards neo-romanticism . Writing in The Independent at the time of Menotti's death in 2007, music critic Peter Dickinson wrote: The reaction against Menotti's popularity was, for a time, disproportionately extreme. The movement towards neo-romanticism during the last 20 years has tended to favour Barber, who used an excellent libretto from Menotti for his grand opera Vanessa, produced at

1314-512: The 1988 revision of the book. Kerman's scathing attack on Menotti was the beginning of an ambivalent relationship with music criticism for the composer which increased in the critical climate of the 1960s in which reviewers favored serialism and the musical avant-garde over Menotti's Italian verismo-inspired style. Viewed as a regressive musical conservative in this period, critics tended to dismiss his work as derivative or overly melodramatic. This negative reaction to Menotti's music continued into

1387-667: The 1995 Nobel Peace Prize , the American Choral Directors Association commissioned Gloria as part of the Mass celebrating the occasion. In 1996 Menotti directed his second filmed version of Amahl and the Night Visitors . Menotti died on February 1, 2007, at the age of 95, at Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco , where he had a home. He was buried in East Lothian, Scotland. In June and July 2007

1460-519: The 2006 co-production by Lausanne Opera and the Opéra Comique . Amelia, a wealthy young socialite, is in her boudoir getting ready for the first ball of the season. However, her husband has discovered that she has a lover and refuses to accompany Amelia unless she reveals his name. When she reveals that her lover is their upstairs neighbor, a general melee breaks out between the jealous husband and her pesty lover, with Amelia eventually breaking

1533-741: The American Choral Directors Association. In 2010, the main theatre in Spoleto was renamed as the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti to honour his role as creator and spirit of the festival. Vocal scores of his compositions: Notes Amelia Goes to the Ball Amelia al ballo ( Amelia Goes to the Ball ) is a one-act opera buffa by Gian Carlo Menotti , who set his own Italian libretto. Composed during 1936 when Menotti

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1606-839: The Belgian premiere in La Monnaie on March 11, 1955, and the French premiere in Metz on December 9, 1967. The opera had several revivals in 1987 when Menotti turned 75. Menotti himself directed a production in the original Italian at the Juilliard School Opera Center in New York and a special performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of the work's premiere at the Philadelphia Academy of Music by

1679-596: The Bishop of Brindisi concerning the Children's Crusade of 1212 premiered at the Cincinnati May Festival to good reviews. Menotti wrote a chamber opera , Martin's Lie (1964) under commissioned by CBS for American television. Although not initially conceived as a work for the stage, the opera premiered in a live theatrical performance on June 3, 1964, at the Bristol Cathedral for

1752-574: The Curtis Institute in the spring of 1933, Menotti and Barber spent the following summer in Austria where Menotti began writing the libretto for his first mature opera, Amelia Goes to the Ball ( Amelia al Ballo ), to his own Italian text while staying in a small village on Lake Wolfgang . The work was inspired by the Baroness von Montechivsky whom Menotti met earlier that summer in Vienna. He spent

1825-525: The Curtis Institute. The cast, drawn from Curtis, was handpicked by Menotti and included baritone Timothy Jon Sarris as Amelia's husband, Maria Fortuna as Amelia and tenor Perry Brisbane as her lover. Amelia al ballo is still periodically performed, with productions in the 2008/2009 seasons in Vichy , Buenos Aires , and São Paulo , as well as a 2010 double bill with Menotti's The Telephone in Tours , using

1898-468: The Donaldson Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1950. Menotti apparently intended to give a role to a then-unknown Maria Callas , but the producer would not have it. The work has become a part of the established opera repertory, and has been performed in more than a dozen languages and over 20 countries. In 1951, Menotti wrote his Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors for NBC which

1971-862: The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the work premiered at the Library of Congress in 1956 and was then staged by the New York City Ballet with dancers Nicholas Magallanes and Arthur Mitchell in 1957. While working on The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore' , Menotti crafted the libretto for Barber's most famous opera, Vanessa , which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958. That same year his opera Maria Golovin premiered at

2044-525: The Festival of Two Worlds, which Menotti founded and oversaw until his death, dedicated the 50th anniversary of the festival to his memory, organised by his son Francis. Menotti works performed during the festival included For the Death of Orpheus , Two Spanish Visions , Muero porque no muero (Santa Teresa D'Avila) , Oh llama de amor viva! (San Giovanni della Croce) , Missa O Pulchritudo . Menotti's style

2117-968: The Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with soprano Maria Knapik , mezzo-soprano Jeeminn Lee , tenor Edward Perretti and baritone Fredrick Redd . La Selva conducted the New Jersey Symphony , the Symphony of the Air , the Juilliard Symphony , the Brno State Philharmonic and the Bern Symphony . In 1995 the President of Italy knighted La Selva as a "Cavaliere" in the Order of Merit of

2190-634: The Italian Republic for his performances of Giuseppe Verdi works. La Selva received the Handel Medallion for his contributions to the cultural life of New York City. He was awarded the world record for performing all of Verdi's works in chronological order and ending with the last on the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death. Gian-Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti ( / m ə ˈ n ɒ t i / , Italian: [ˈdʒaŋ ˈkarlo meˈnɔtti] ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007)

2263-638: The Met in 1958. But for sheer theatrical craft and human curiosity, sustained by his own complex emotional make-up, Menotti created a telling verismo of the Second World War era. Sources: In 1984 Menotti was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for achievement in the arts, and in 1991 he was chosen as Musical America's' "Musician of the Year". In 1997, he was awarded the Brock Commission from

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2336-401: The Night Visitors (1951), along with over two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste. Many of Menotti's operas enjoyed successful runs on Broadway , including two Pulitzer Prize winning works, The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955). While all of his works used English language libretti, three of his operas also had Italian language libretti penned by

2409-737: The Thief , one of the first such works. The opera premiered in a radio broadcast on April 22, 1939, with Alberto Erede conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra for the closing of the orchestra's 1938–1939 season. The opera was first staged in a slightly revised version by the Philadelphia Opera Company at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1941. The New York Philharmonic chose to program portions of

2482-468: The United States. Still in its English guise, Amelia Goes to the Ball had its Metropolitan Opera premiere on March 3, 1938, with Muriel Dickson as Amelia, John Brownlee as her husband, and Mario Chamlee as her lover, under the baton of Ettore Panizza . The opera received a total of seven performances at the Met that season, four times in a double bill with Strauss' Elektra (including

2555-413: The artform. At the age of 17, Menotti's life was dramatically altered by the death of his father. Following her husband's death, Ines Menotti and Gian Carlo moved to Colombia in a futile attempt to salvage the family's coffee business. In 1928 she enrolled him at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music before returning to Italy. Armed with a letter of introduction from the wife of Arturo Toscanini ,

2628-632: The careers of such artists as singer Shirley Verrett and choreographers Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp . In 1986, he extended the concept to a Spoleto Festival in Melbourne , Australia. Menotti was the artistic director during the period of 1986–88, but after three festivals there, he decided to withdraw – and took the naming rights with him. The Melbourne Spoleto Festival has now become the Melbourne International Arts Festival . Menotti left Spoleto USA in 1993 to take

2701-492: The composer: Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937), The Island God (1942), and The Last Savage (1963). He founded the Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds) in Spoleto in 1958 and its American counterpart, Spoleto Festival USA , in 1977. In 1986 he commenced a Melbourne Spoleto Festival in Australia, but he withdrew after three years. Menotti also wrote music for several ballets, many choral works, chamber music , orchestral music of varying kinds including

2774-540: The composition trends of musical modernism, Menotti stated: "Atonal music is essentially pessimistic. It is incapable of expressing joy or humor." Menotti wrote skilfully for smaller instrumental ensembles, and his orchestrations tend to be lighter and open. A composer who purposefully chose to cater to the tastes of the general public, his use of tonal melodies often had a modal flavor, frequently used sequence and repetition; they are easily remembered. In his operas his aria-like passages tend to be brief so as not to interrupt

2847-484: The dramatic flow, while his recitative-like passages carefully used natural speech rhythms that make the text easily understood by audiences. In 1964 he wrote: There is a certain indolence towards the use of the voice today, a tendency to treat the voice instrumentally, as if composers feared that its texture is too expressive, too human. While principally writing in the verismo style, Menotti did use some newer 20th century harmonic techniques and language when they served

2920-585: The dramatic intent of his works. For example, he uses 12-tone music ironically in Act 2 of The Last Savage to parody contemporary civilization (and indirectly the avant-garde composer); electronic tape music to represent the invaders from outer space in Help, Help, the Globolinks! , and a lengthy sustained high dissonant chord in The Consul at the moment of Magda's suicide. Even in his tonal harmonic passages he would sometimes break traditional harmonic progression rules by employing parallel harmony . Reactions to Menotti's works ranged widely. His early career

2993-420: The early 1960s. Chip, and later his wife, lived with Menotti at Yester House. In 1970 Menotti's second drama without music, The Leper , was first performed in Tallahassee, Florida, on April 24, 1970. His opera The Most Important Man was commissioned by the New York City Opera, and was given its premiere at Lincoln Center in 1971. An opera focusing on racial tensions in America with a central black hero,

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3066-444: The faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music from 1948 to 1955. He also served as the artistic director of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma from 1992 to 1994, and directed operas periodically for notable organizations such as the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna State Opera . Born in Cadegliano-Viconago , Italy , near Lake Maggiore and the Swiss border, Menotti was the sixth of ten children of Alfonso and Ines Menotti. His father

3139-402: The festival consumed his time. He wrote the libretti for Barber's one act opera A Hand of Bridge and Lukas Foss 's Introductions and Good-byes , both of which premiered together at the Festival of Two Worlds in 1959. He later revised the libretto for Barber's Antony and Cleopatra (1966). Albert Husson adapted his first dramatic play without music, A Copy of Madame Aupic (1943), into

3212-506: The helm of the Rome Opera . In spite of these festival's claims on Menotti's time, which included directing plays as well as operas, he maintained an active artistic career. Many of his later operas are directed towards children, both as subjects and as performers, including The Egg (1976), The Trial of the Gypsy (1978), Chip and his Dog (1979), A Bride from Pluto (1982), The Boy who Grew too Fast (1982), and his final opera The Singing Child (1993). The San Diego Opera commissioned

3285-451: The intention of utilizing special camera effects that were unique to television. That same year the opera The Last Savage premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and that work was given a lavish production at the Metropolitan Opera in 1964. This opera was disparaged by the French and American press, but was particularly well received for performances at opera houses in Italy in succeeding years. Also in 1963, his cantata The Death of

3358-421: The majority of the next four years pursuing further musical studies in Europe, including composition studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He did not finish composing the music for Amelia until his return to the United States in 1937. The Curtis Institute presented the world premiere of Amelia Goes to the Ball at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia with Margaret Daum as Amelia in April 1937, and this

3431-415: The most frequently performed operas of the 20th century. The work remains Menotti's most popular work. Menotti won a second Pulitzer Prize for his opera The Saint of Bleecker Street , which premiered at the Broadway Theatre in 1955. This work was also awarded the Drama Critics' Circle Award for best musical and the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for the best opera. Set in contemporary New York,

3504-544: The music to fit the new English words. Staged by the Curtis Institute of Music , Amelia Goes to the Ball premiered on April 1, 1937, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music under the direction of Austrian composer, librettist, and stage director Ernst Lert , with set and costume designs by Tony Award -winning designer Donald Oenslager . The opera was presented in a double bill with the US premiere of Darius Milhaud 's Le pauvre matelot . Both operas were conducted by Fritz Reiner . Sylvan Levin served as chorus master, and

3577-422: The opening night), twice paired with Strauss' Salome , and once with Rimsky-Korsakov 's Le coq d'or . The world premiere of the original Amelia al ballo took place, fittingly, in Italy: on April 4, 1938, in the opera house of the Sanremo Municipal Casino . Amelia 's success led to a commission from NBC for an opera specifically composed for radio: The Old Maid and the Thief of 1939. During

3650-521: The opening of the 17th annual Bath International Music Festival . The opera was subsequently filmed with the same cast for television under the direction of Kirk Browning , and was broadcast nationally by CBS for the opera's United States premiere on May 30, 1965. In 1967 Thomas Schippers succeeded Menotti as director of the Festival of Two Worlds, although he continued on as President of the festival's board of directors for several more decades. That same year Menotti's song cycle Canti della lontananza

3723-459: The opera La Loca (1979) as a 50th birthday gift for soprano Beverly Sills , and she performed the work both in San Diego and with the New York City Opera. The work tells the story of the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, and was the last opera Sills added to her repertory before retiring. In 1986 his opera Goya , written for Plácido Domingo , was given its première by the Washington National Opera . With Goya (1986), he utilized

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3796-660: The opera in 1942 with conductor Fritz Busch leading the ensemble. The first staged production in New York was presented by the New York City Opera in April 1948 in a double bill with Amelia Goes to the Ball , both operas directed by the composer. In 1943, Menotti and Barber purchased 'Capricorn', a house north of Manhattan in suburban Mount Kisco, New York . The home served as their artistic retreat up until 1972. Many of their major works were composed at this house. The two frequently hosted salon gatherings at Capricorn with other well known composers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals in attendance. American author William Goyen

3869-440: The opera is concerned with the conflict of the physical and spiritual worlds. Following its New York run, the opera was staged at La Scala and the Vienna Volksoper , and was recorded for BBC Television in 1957. This work was followed by The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore (1956), a "madrigal fable" for chorus, ten dancers and nine instruments which was based on the 16th century Italian madrigal comedy . Commissioned by

3942-421: The pinnacle of Menotti's critical acclaim, beginning with his first full-length opera, The Consul , which premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1950. The work won both the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Musical Play of the Year (the latter in 1954). American soprano Patricia Neway starred as the tormented protagonist Magda Sorel, for which she won

4015-458: The public in New York City 's Central Park . One of the most ambitious projects of the NYGO was the chronological presentation, from 1994 onwards, of all of Verdi 's operas, beginning with Oberto (1839) and ending with Falstaff in 2000 and with the finale of the series being the Requiem Mass performed on the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death, 27 January 2001, at Carnegie Hall . In November 2006, NYGO performed Beethoven's symphony no.9 at

4088-414: The sponsorship of the United States Department of State with musical forces led by Thomas Schippers . The Medium was also made into a motion picture in 1951 starring Marie Powers and Anna Maria Alberghetti and competed in the 1952 Cannes Film Festival . It is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of opera on film ever made. In the midst of this success, Menotti also composed music for

4161-473: The teenager Gian Carlo studied composition at Curtis under Rosario Scalero . That same year, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Samuel Barber , who became his partner in life as well as in their shared profession. As a student, Menotti spent much of his time with the Barber family in West Chester, Pennsylvania , and the two also spent several summer breaks in Europe attending opera performances in Vienna and in Italy while studying at Curtis. After graduating from

4234-427: The text consisting of personal memories and incidents of the composer's own life in America. On June 1 the Opera Company of Philadelphia performed the world premiere of the comedic opera The Hero (1976) which satirized American politics, particularly the Watergate scandal . On August 4 of that same year the Philadelphia Orchestra presented the world premiere of Menotti's Symphony No. 1 ("Halcyon Symphony") at

4307-424: The work was poorly received by most critics. However, Menotti personally believed that this was one of his best operas on par with The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street . His opera Tamu-Tamu premiered in 1973 at the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago as part of the IX Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences . The year 1976 was particularly fruitful for Menotti, with

4380-420: Was a businessman and his mother a talented amateur musician. The family was financially prosperous with his father and uncle jointly operating a coffee exporting firm in Colombia. He learned to play the organ from his eccentric aunt LiLine Bianchini, who experienced religious hallucinations. He was deeply religious in his youth, and was greatly influenced by his parish priest Don Rimoldi. Menotti's mother, who

4453-675: Was a frequent visitor to the house and later Goyen's lover, American artist Joseph Glasco , became friends with and visited Menotti and Barber. Menotti's third opera, The Island God , was written for the Metropolitan Opera where it premiered to poor reviews in 1942. He believed this work failed because the libretto he wrote relied too heavily on metaphysics which resulted in an overly pretentious philosophical and symbolic work that failed to connect with audiences. In interviews he expressed that this failure taught him "how not to write an opera". Following this, he wrote his first dramatic play without music, A Copy of Madame Aupic , in 1943. The work

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4526-471: Was a particular admirer of Menotti who championed the composer in his reviews for his skillful merge of music and theater. In contrast, Joseph Kerman wrote in the 1956 edition of his widely read Opera as Drama , "Menotti is a trivial artist, a sensationalist in the old style, and in fact a weak one, diluting the faults of Strauss and Puccini with none of their fugitive virtues." However, Kerman later tempered his assessment, and retracted this statement in

4599-446: Was an Italian-American composer, librettist , director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, he wrote his most successful works in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky , Menotti further developed

4672-427: Was described by the Time magazine critic who attended the world premiere as "full of glowing, facetious music admirably suited to the story", and by the New York World-Telegram as "delightful", "vivacious" and "tuneful" in a review of its first performance at the Met. However, following a performance of Amelia Goes to the Ball in Birmingham , England, in 1989, Jan Smaczny writing for Opera described it as

4745-403: Was given its premiere at Hunter College by soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf for whom the work was written. He composed music for the 1968 production of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet at the Théâtre National Populaire with director Michael Cacoyannis . In 1969 the children's opera Help, Help, the Globolinks! premiered at the Hamburg State Opera , and the work was performed at

4818-451: Was highly influential in his musical development, sent all of her children to music lessons in the piano, violin, and cello. The family performed chamber music together, and with other musicians in the community in evenings hosted in the Menotti household. A child prodigy , Gian Carlo began writing compositions when he was seven years old, and at eleven wrote both the libretto and music for his first opera, The Death of Pierrot . This work

4891-449: Was in his mid-twenties, it was the composer's first mature opera and first critical success. The opera recounts a series of farcical events as a young Italian socialite overcomes obstacles to her attendance at the first ball of the season. Menotti secured a premiere for the work in Philadelphia. This required, however, a translation into English of the original libretto. George Mead prepared the translation and Menotti made minor revisions to

4964-495: Was inspired by Hieronymus Bosch 's painting Adoration of the Magi (c. 1485–1500). It was the first opera ever written for television in America, and first aired on Christmas Eve, 1951 with Chet Allen as Amahl and Rosemary Kuhlmann as his mother. The opera was such a success that the broadcasting of Amahl and the Night Visitors became an annual Christmas tradition. The work has also been staged by numerous opera companies, universities, and other institutions, and became one of

5037-451: Was mainly marked by critical and commercial success, with the operas Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937), The Old Maid and the Thief (1939), The Medium (1946), The Telephone (1947), The Consul (1950), Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954) all demonstrating popular appeal and overall favorable reviews. Music critic and editor Winthrop Sargeant of Time , The New Yorker and Musical America

5110-432: Was not staged until 1947 when it premiered in New Milford, Connecticut . Other works from this period include a ballet, Sebastian (1944), and the Piano Concerto in A Minor (1945) which were written before Menotti returned to opera with The Medium in 1946. Commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund , this fourth opera premiered at Columbia University and then transferred to a critically successful run on Broadway at

5183-449: Was particularly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky , and he further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post- World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School , his music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent. In explaining his rejection of many of

5256-553: Was performed as a home puppet show, a passion that occupied Gian Carlo's youth after he was introduced to the art from his older brother Pier Antonio. He began his formal musical training at the Milan Conservatory in 1924 at the age of 13. While at the conservatory, Menotti wrote his second childhood opera, The Little Mermaid . He spent three years studying at the conservatory during which time he frequently attended operas at La Scala which cemented his lifetime love for

5329-593: Was soon followed by professional stagings later that year at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore and the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City with soprano Florence Kirk in the title role. A critical success, the work was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in 1938 with Muriel Dickson in the title role. The first international staging was in Sanremo , Italy, that same year. Amelia al ballo

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