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John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003), and Shaker Loops (1978), a minimalist four-movement work for strings.

Adams’ music, including his two “grand operas” written with poet Alice Goodman, have been called “post-minimalist” for the way they expand on the style pioneered by composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Adams’ Doctor Atomic recently found a new production at the Metropolitan Opera, with his Nixon in China scheduled to follow in 2010.

The Curran Theatre is located in San Francisco and was named by its first owner, Homer Curran.

Curran operated another theatre with his name for several years prior to building the current theatre; however, the original Curran Theatre had various names before and after this time whereas the current theatre has never had another name. It has been claimed that the current theatre’s design is based on six different Broadway houses. It opened in February 1922 and was initially considered a Shubert house. Later, it was a showcase for Theatre Guild presentations. Subsequently, it became closely associated with the Civic Light Opera (CLO) which also operated in Los Angeles. The CLO obtained numerous prestigious bookings as well as producing their own shows (often with star names as the leads).

Curran is also noted for writing the book for the musical “Song of Norway” and co-writing the book for the less-successful “Magdalena.” He eventually left San Francisco for southern California where he rented theatrical lighting.

The ceiling above the main lobby is notable because it was handpainted to look like wood (steel wool was used to fashion a wood grain in the plaster before painting). The main lobby has a marble floor but has long since been covered by carpeting. It is less comfortable to stand on marble, became slippery when it rained, and also made the lobby colder. There are “plugs” built into the lobby floor in which to insert stanchions from which theatre ropes were hung to section off the lobby. It is claimed that its neon sign was the first in San Francisco (which replaced the original Curran sign consisting of lightbulbs). The loge section was modified prior to “Hello, Dolly!”‘s first booking at the theatre. Originally, the loge section was similar to the boxes with moveable chairs in sectioned areas. The box-like loges are still evident by what remains of the metal railings in front of the loge section as well as the decorative plaster when viewed from below. The change was made because it increased the seating capacity by about 10 seats in this highly desirable area. The interior main floor lobby no longer exists. Originally, it was changed to a minor degree to accommodate the installation of a sound booth without decreasing the Orchestra seating capacity. Eventually, the lobby space was used to install a larger bar area as well as handicap accessible restrooms.

Up until the mid-1990s, the auditorium used to be much more illuminated. There are two murals in the auditorium that are little-noticed without the enhanced lighting. Both rise from the lower mezzanine level on each side.

The theatre has two front curtains: the decorative green fire curtain in front of a gold curtain. When musicals traditionally utilized each theatre’s front curtains, the first curtain would be raised five minutes prior to the start of the show. There were two coat check rooms: one off to the south of the main floor interior lobby and the other on the balcony (adjacent the ladies’ restroom). There were also two telephone “booths” on the mezzanine lobby—one on each side of the windows. These booths were actually very small rooms with formal doors. The coat check rooms and telephone booths are now used for storage. The theatre also had a central vacuum system. This system is still evident by the connection points on the walls, near the floor. The chandelier was built in San Francisco (by a company that used to be on Mission Street). There is a plaque honoring Arthur Mayer mounted at the entrance to boxes L-M-N. Mayer watched the theatre being built, was hired by Curran as part of the theatre’s opening night staff, and continued working at the theatre until he was nearly 100-years-old.

For many years, the San Francisco Opera performed their annual “Spring Opera” series at the Curran.

In 1977, the Civic Light Opera shifted its operations to the Orpheum Theatre and, by the end of that year, Carole Shorenstein Hays and James M. Nederlander took over the operation of the Curran and launched their Best of Broadway season starting with John Raitt in the national tour of Shenandoah and including the west coast debut of Annie. Later, Shorenstein, a Tony award winning producer, changed the name of her organization, SHN Theatres, and has operated the Curran as the premier theatre destination on the West Coast. In the 1950s, the theatre was used for the interior and exterior scenes of a Broadway theatre in the movie All About Eve. The original main floor interior lobby can be seen in this film. All the theatre scenes were filmed at the Curran except for the dressing room interior. The television series, The Streets of San Francisco, filmed an episode inside and outside the Curran. In the program, the Curran is used as the setting for A.C.T. In reality, A.C.T. operates at the adjacent Geary Theatre which is also visible in some shots. Luminaries such as Lenny Bruce, Mary Martin, Katharine Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Richard Taylor, Ian McKellen, Florence Henderson, Angela Lansbury, Mae West, Dorothy Loudon, Richard Kiley, Sally Ann Howe, Keene Curtis, Victor Garber, Laurence Luckinbill, Lucie Arnaz, Patti LaBelle, Rob Marshall, Georgia Brown, Ben Harney, The Smothers Brothers, Jane Connell, Ricardo Montalban, Werner Klemperer, Ethel Waters, Jean Fenn, Agnes Moorehead, Herb Edelman, Matthew Broderick, Joyce Van Patten, Elizabeth Franz, Jonathan Silverman, Zeljko Ivanek, Marcel Marceau, Ann Miller, Mickey Rooney, Joel Grey, Florence Lacey, Ron Holgate, Lee Roy Reams, Paxton Whitehead, Ann Jillian, Leslie Uggams, Andrea McArdle, Mary Alice, Jack Lemmon, Estelle Parsons, Stacey Keach, Maxwell Caulfield, James Earl Jones, Karen Valentine, Brian Dennehy, Al Pacino, Amanda Plummer, Elizabeth Ashley, Mercedes McCambridge, Stockard Channing, Judith Light and many other stars have played at the Curran. Carol Channing not only played the Curran on mulitple occasions but also claimed it is where she saw first saw a stage show.

Born March 2, 1905, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. Died Jan. 22, 1964, Fort-de-France, Martinique  

American pianist, playwright, and composer known for his unorthodox operas and plays. 

As a child, Blitzstein was a musical prodigy, performing at age 5, composing at 7, and at 15 being introduced as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the 1920s he studied piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Arnold Schönberg in Berlin. His first opera,  The Cradle Will Rick (1937), is the story of a capitalist’s resistance to unionization. Controversy surrounded much of Blitzstein’s work, which is experimental in subject matter and characterized by unexpected tonalities. Blitzstein believed fascism should be fought with art, and he had a gift for composing music that was dramatic and meaningful. He wrote Regina (1949), an opera based on Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, and is best known for his translation and musical adaptation of The Threepenny Opera (first performed in 1952) by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Although Blitzstein’s operatic music was in the spotlight because of its political content, it was not popularly acclaimed. He was working on a major opera, Sacco and Vanzetti, at the time of his death.

Catherine Malfitano (born 18 April 1948) is an American operatic soprano. She is generally considered to be one of America’s leading drammatic sopranos. Her vocal versatility, physical grace and dramatic abilities make her a sought-after performer in opera houses and concert halls.

Malfitano was born in New York City, the daughter of a ballet dancer mother, Maria Maslova, and a violinist father, Joseph Malfitano. She attended the High School of Music and Art and studied at the Frank Corsaro Studio and the Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 1971.

Operatic career

Malfitano made her professional singing debut in 1972 at the Central City Opera playing the role of Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff. She soon appeared with Minnesota Opera, and, in 1974 at New York City Opera, in La bohème, as Mimi. She then appeared with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1975) and at the Royal Opera House (1976) and in other major European opera houses. In 1978, Malfitano achieved wider recognition in a telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street from NYCO, playing Annina.

Since then, Malfitano has sung at the major opera houses throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Grand Théâtre de Genève in Geneva, Teatro Comunale in Florence, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Berlin State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Paris Opéra, Hamburgische Staatsoper in Hamburg, De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam as well as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Houston Grand Opera and the Salzburg Festival.

One of Malfitano’s best-known roles is the title role in the opera Tosca, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1992, performing opposite Plácido Domingo as Mario Cavaradossi and Ruggero Raimondi as Scarpia. The opera was broadcast live from the actual Roman settings of the opera and viewed by viewers worldwide. She is also associated with the title role in Richard Strauss’s Salome, notably for performing the “Dance of the Seven Veils” ending the dance completely nude, a rarity in opera.[1] She was also fully naked as Jenny in Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny).

Throughout her career, Malfitano has championed the music of American composers, including Carlisle Floyd, William Bolcom, Conrad Susa and Thomas Pasatieri.  Malfitano has also directed operas including Madama Butterfly at Central City Opera in 2005 and The Saint of Bleecker Street in 2007.

She is currently a member of the voice faculty at Manhattan School of Music.

Born:

August 25, 1918 – Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA
Died: October 14, 1990 – New York, USA

The prodgiously gifted American conductor, composer, pianist, and teacher, Leonard (actually, Louis) Bernstein, took piano lessons as a boy and attended the Garrison and Boston Latin Schools. At Harvard University, he studied with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame-Hill, and A. Tillman Merritt, among others. Before graduating in 1939, he made an unofficial conducting debut with his own incidental music to The Birds, and directed and performed in Marc Blitstein’s The Cradle Will Rock. Then at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he studied piano with Isabella Vengerova, conducting with Fritz Reiner, and orchestration with Randall Thompson. In 1940, he studied at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s newly created summer institute, Tanglewood, with the orchestra’s conductor, Serge Koussevitzky. Bernstein later became Serge Koussevitzky’s conducting assistant.

Leonard Bernstein was appointed to his first permanent conducting post in 1943, as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic. In November 1943, he substituted on a few hours notice for the ailing Bruno Walter at a Carnegie Hall concert, which was broadcast nationally on radio, receiving critical acclaim. Soon orchestras worldwide sought him out as a guest conductor.

In 1945 he was appointed Music Director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1947. After Serge Koussevitzky died in 1951, Bernstein headed the orchestral and conducting departments at Tanglewood, teaching there for many years. In 1951 he married the Chilean actress and pianist, Felicia Montealegre. He was also visiting music professor, and head of the Creative Arts Festivals at Brandeis University in the early 1950’s.

In 1956 Leonard Bernstein was engaged as associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic orchestra with Dimitri Mitropoulos, and became his successor as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958. From then until 1969 he led more concerts with the orchestra than any previous conductor. He subsequently held the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor, making frequent guest appearances with the orchestra. More than half of Bernstein’s 400-plus recordings were made with the New York Philharmonic.

Bernstein traveled the world as a conductor. Immediately after World War II, in 1946, he conducted in London and at the International Music Festival in Prague. In 1947 he conducted in Tel Aviv, beginning a relationship with Israel that lasted until his death. In 1953, Bernstein was the first American to conduct opera at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan: Cherubini’s Medea with Maria Callas.

Leonard Bernstein was a leading advocate of American composers, particularly Aaron Copland. The two remained close friends for life. As a young pianist, Bernstein performed Copland’s Piano Variations so often he considered the composition his trademark. Bernstein programmed and recorded nearly all of the Copland orchestral works – many of them twice. He devoted several televised “Young People’s Concerts” to Copland, and gave the premiere of Copland’s Connotations, commissioned for the opening of Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) at Lincoln Center in 1962.

While Bernstein’s conducting repertoire encompassed the standard literature, he may be best remembered for his performances and recordings of Haydn, Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Schumann, Sibelius and Gustav Mahler. Particularly notable were his performances of the G. Mahler symphonies with the New York Philharmonic in the 1960’s, sparking a renewed interest in the works of G. Mahler.

Inspired by his Jewish heritage, Leonard Bernstein completed his first large-scale work: Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah. (1943). The piece was first performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1944, conducted by the composer, and received the New York Music Critics’ Award. Koussevitzky premiered Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein as piano soloist. His Symphony No. 3: Kaddish, composed in 1963, was premiered by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Kaddish is dedicated “To the Beloved Memory of John F. Kennedy.” He also wrote many other compositions for various combinations, including orchesral, choral, chamber and piano works, song cycles, operas, scores for movies, music for ballett, incidental music for plays, musicals, and more.

Festivals of Bernstein’s music have been produced throughout the world. In 1978 the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra sponsored a festival commemorating his years of dedication to Israel. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra also bestowed on him the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1988. In 1986 the London Symphony Orchestra and the Barbican Centre produced a Bernstein Festival. The London Symphony Orchestra in 1987 named him Honorary President. In 1989 the city of Bonn presented a Beethoven/Bernstein Festival.

In 1985 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored Leonard Bernstein with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. He won eleven Emmy Awards in his career. His televised concert and lecture series started with the “Omnibus” program in 1954, followed by the extraordinary “Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic,” in 1958 that extended over fourteen seasons. Among his many appearances on the PBS series “Great Performances” was the eleven-part acclaimed “Bernstein’s Beethoven.” In 1989, Bernstein and others commemorated the 1939 invasion of Poland in a worldwide telecast from Warsaw

Leonard Bernstein’s writings were published in four books. He gave six lectures at Harvard University in 1972-1973 as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry. These lectures were subsequently published and televised as “The Unanswered Question.”

Leonard Bernstein always rejoiced in opportunities to teach young musicians. His master-classes at Tanglewood were famous. He was instrumental in founding the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute in 1982. He helped create a world class training orchestra at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival. He founded the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Modeled after Tanglewood, this international festival was the first of its kind in Asia and continues to this day.

Leonard Bernstein received many honors. He was elected in 1981 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which gave him a Gold Medal. The National Fellowship Award in 1985 applauded his life-long support of humanitarian causes. He received the MacDowell Colony’s Gold Medal; medals from the Beethoven Society and the Mahler Gesellschaft; the Handel Medallion, New York City’s highest honor for the arts; a Tony award (1969) for Distinguished Achievement in the Theater; and dozens of honorary degrees and awards from colleges and universities. He was presented ceremonial keys to the cities of Oslo, Vienna, Bersheeva and the village of Bernstein, Austria, among others. National honors came from Italy, Israel, Mexico, Denmark, Germany (the Great Merit Cross), and France (Chevalier, Officer and Commandeur of the Legion d’Honneur). He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980.

World peace was a particular concern of Leonard Bernstein. Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in 1980 and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in 1983, he described his vision of global harmony. H”Journey for Peace” tour to Athens and Hiroshima with the European Community Orchestra in 1985, commemorated the 40th anniversary of the atom bomb. In December 1989, Bernstein conducted the historic “Berlin Celebration Concerts” on both sides of the Berlin Wall, as it was being dismantled. The concerts were unprecedented gestures of cooperation, the musicians representing the former East Germany, West Germany, and the four powers that had partitioned Berlin after World War II.

Leonard Bernstein supported Amnesty International from its inception. To benefit the effort in 1987, he established the Felicia Montealegre Fund in memory of his wife who died in 1978.

In 1990, Leonard Bernstein received the Praemium Imperiale, an international prize created in 1988 by the Japan Arts Association and awarded for lifetime achievement in the arts. Bernstein used the $100,000 prize to establish The Bernstein Education Through the Arts (BETA) Fund, Inc. before his death.

Operas       

• Trouble in Tahiti, opera in one act
  Libretto by the composer.
  June 12, 1952, Waltham, Massachusetts
• A Quiet Place (incorporating Trouble in Tahiti), opera in three acts
  Libretto by Stephen Wadsworth after an original libretto by the composer.
  June 17, 1983, Houston, Texas

Stage works

• Fancy Free (ballet), 1944
• On The Town (musical), 1944
• Facsimile (ballet), 1946
• Peter Pan (songs, incidental music), 1950
• Trouble in Tahiti (opera in one act), 1952
• Wonderful Town (musical), 1953
• On the Waterfront (film score), 1954
• The Lark (incidental music), 1955
• Candide (operetta), 1956 (new libretto in 1973, operetta revised in 1989)
• West Side Story (musical), 1957
• The Firstborn (incidental music), 1958
• Mass (theatre piece for singers, players and dancers), 1971
• Dybbuk (ballet), 1974
• 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical), 1976
• The Madwoman of Central Park West (songs), 1979
• A Quiet Place (opera in two acts), 1983
• The Race to Urga (musical), 1987

 Orchestral

• Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah, 1942
• Fancy Free and Three Dance Variations from “Fancy Free,”, concert premiere 1946
• Three Dance Episodes from “On the Town,” concert premiere 1947
• Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, (after W. H. Auden) for Piano and Orchestra, 1949 (revised in 1965)
• Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion (after Plato’s “Symposium”), 1954
• Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs for Solo Clarinet and Jazz Ensemble, 1949
• Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront”, 1955
• Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story”, 1961
• Symphony No. 3, Kaddish, for Orchestra, Mixed Chorus, Boys’ Choir, Speaker and Soprano Solo, 1963 (revised in 1977)
• Dybbuk, Suites No. 1 and 2 for Orchestra, concert premieres 1975
• Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra, 1977
• Three Meditations from “Mass” for Violoncello and Orchestra, 1977
• Slava! A Political Overture for Orchestra, 1977
• Divertimento for Orchestra, 1980
• Halil, nocturne for Solo Flute, Piccolo, Alto Flute, Percussion, Harp and Strings, 1981
• Concerto for Orchestra, 1989 (Originally Jubilee Games from 1986, revised in 1989)

Choral

• Hashkiveinu for Cantor (tenor), Mixed Chorus and Organ, 1945
• Missa Brevis for Mixed Chorus and Countertenor Solo, with Percussion, 1988
• Chichester Psalms for Boy Soprano (or Countertenor), Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra, 1965 (Reduced version for Organ, Harp and Percussion)

Chamber music

• Piano Trio, 1937, Boosey & Hawkes
• Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, 1939
• Brass Music, 1959
• Dance Suite, 1988

Mark Adamo (born 1962) is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata “Late Victorians, “Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra,” and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house: the composer and librettist of the highly-regarded Little Women, he has served as composer-in-residence for New York City Opera from 2001 to 2006,, and the company gave the East Coast premiere of his new opera, Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess, in March-April 2006. Lysistrata, hailed as “a sumptuous love story, poised between comedy and heartbreak” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, was David Gockley’s last commission for the Houston Grand Opera, which gave the world premiere in 4 March 2005. Since its 1998 premiere by Houston Grand Opera, “Little Women” has been heard in over sixty-five international engagements, including a telecast over the PBS series “Great Performances” in August 2001. The opera was given its Asian premiere in May 2005, when New York City Opera’s production of the piece was chosen as the U.S. exhibit for the World Expo in Tokyo and Nagoya; State Opera of South Australia gave the Australian premiere at the Adelaide Festival in May 2007, the International Vocal Arts Institute gave the Israeli premiere in Tel Aviv in July 2008, and Calgary Opera has announced the Canadian premiere for January 2010.

Adamo began his education at New York University, where he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition in 1990 from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was awarded the Theodore Presser prize for outstanding undergraduate achievement in composition. At New York City Opera, he curated the contemporary opera workshop series VOX: Showcasing American Composers. Adamo served as master artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in May 2003. He has directed productions of his Little Women in Cleveland and Milwaukee, both of which were cited as among the best classical-music events of the year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, respectively; and he has annotated programs for Stagebill, the Freer Gallery of Art, and most recently for BMG Classics. His criticism and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Stagebill, Opera News, the Star-Ledger, and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; and the journal on his self-titled website was named among the Best Music Blogs by Arts Journal in January 2008.

Adamo, who is openly gay, has lived with his partner, composer John Corigliano in New York City.; the two were legally married in California by the conductor Marin Alsop in August 2008. In January 2009, San Francisco Opera announced it had commissioned Adamo to compose both score and libretto for an opera entitled “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene,” which, in the composers’ words, “will draw on the Canonical Gospels, the Gnostic Gospels, and fifty years of scholarship to reimagine the New Testament through the eyes of its lone substantial female character.” San Francisco Opera plans a premiere in June 2013.

Opera

• Little Women (1998)
• Avow, a 10-minute chamber opera (1999)
• Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess (2005)

For over fifty years the Jackie Gleason Theater Miami of the Performing Arts has been South Florida’s home for the best in Broadway, music and opera! Theater offers a diverse, year-round season of cutting edge and traditional programming that includes comedy, concerts, ballet, Broadway, television productions, opera and much, much more!

The Jackie Gleason Theater has 2,705 seats using an orchestra and mezzanine seating plan with a flexible hydraulic orchestra pit.

The Jackie Gleason Theater has hosted such event: Opera: Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti

Hugo Weisgall

Hugo David Weisgall (October 13, 1912 – March 11, 1997) was an American composer and conductor , known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions. He was born in Eibenschitz (now Ivančice), Moravia (then part of Austria-Hungary, later in his childhood Czechoslovakia) and moved to the United States at the age of eight.

Weisgall studied at the Peabody Institute, privately with Roger Sessions, and at the Curtis Institute of Music with conductor Fritz Reiner and composer Rosario Scalero. He later earned a Ph.D. in German literature at Johns Hopkins University. During World War II he was an aide-de-camp to General George S. Patton. After the war he became a professor, and taught at Queens College, the Juilliard School, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, all in New York City. His notable students include composers Dominick Argento, Bruce Saylor and the accordionist/composer William Schimmel.

Weisgall came from a family of several generations of cantors, and maintained a lifelong interest in both sacred and secular Jewish music. In 1992 he was commissioned by the Friends of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary to write a song cycle, Psalm of the Distant Dove, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Other major works include his most ambitious opera, Athaliah (libretto: Richard Frank Goldman, after Jean Racine), and his often-performed Six Characters in Search of an Author (libretto: Denis Johnston, after Luigi Pirandello).

Hugo Weisgall died at the age of 84 in Long Island, New York.

Operas

• Night (1932, not performed). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by Sholem Asch
• Lilith (1934, not performed). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by L. Elman
• The Tenor (1948-1950). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Karl Shapiro and Ernst Lert (after the play by Frank Wedekind). World Premiere: 11/02/1952 Baltimore (Peabody Opera Company; conductor: Hugo Weisgall)
• The Stronger (1952). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Richard Henry Hart (after the play Den Starkare by August Strindberg). WP (piano version): 09/08/1952 Westport, Connecticut (White Barn Theatre; Hilltop Opera Company). WP (orchestral version): 1955 New York (Columbia University)
• Six Characters in Search of an Author (1953-1956). Opera in 3 acts. Libretto: Denis Johnston (after the play by Luigi Pirandello). WP: 26/04/1959 New York (New York City Opera; with Beverly Sills [Coloratura])
• Purgatory (1958). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by William Butler Yeats. WP: 17/02/1961 Washington (Library of Congress)
• The Gardens of Adonis (1959, revised 1977-1981). Opera in 3 scenes. Libretto: Jon Olon-Scrymgeour (after the play Venus and Adonis by André Obey, based on the eponymous poem by William Shakespeare). WP: 12/09/1992 Omaha, Nebraska (Witherspoon Concert Hall)
• Athaliah (1960-1963). Opera in 2 parts. Libretto: Richard Frank Goldman (after the play Athalie [1691] by Jean Racine). WP: 17/02/1964 New York (concert performance)
• Nine Rivers from Jordan (1964-1968). Opera in a prologue and 3 acts. Libretto: Denis Johnston. WP: 09/10/1968 New York (New York City Opera)
• Jenny, or The Hundred Nights (1975/76). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: John Hollander (after a [Noh] play by Yukio Mishima). WP: 22/04/1976 (Juilliard School, American Opera Center)
• Will You Marry Me? (1989). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Charles Kondek (after the play A Marriage Has Been Arranged by Alfred Sutro). WP: 08/03/1989 New York (Opera Ensemble of New York)
• Esther (1990-1993). Opera in 3 acts. Libretto: Charles Kondek (after the Bible). WP: 08/10/1993 New York (New York City Opera)