Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism^[1]. In three acts, the musical style has been described as new American verismo, abounding in the use of spirituals, Victorian parlour music, dance forms, ragtime, aria and large, symphonic score^[2]. Borrowing from both opera and Broadway styles, in a manner similar to Leonard Bernstein's in Trouble in Tahiti and Virgil Thompson's in Three Saints in Four Acts, Regina has been said to straddle the line between entertainment and so-called serious music^[3].

Hellman gave Blitzstein a great deal of input into the construction of the opera, most of it vetoing any departures from her own dramatic structure. Blitzstein planned an elaborate choral prologue, but Hellman convinced him to shorten and finally jettison it entirely. Before the premiere, producer Cheryl Crawford insisted on still further cuts to the opera, asking Blitzstein to reduce the work from three acts to two. He did so, cutting fifteen minutes of music out of the party scene^[4]. Leonard Bernstein described Reginas relationship to The Little Foxes as "coating the wormwood with sugar, and scenting with magnolia blossoms the cursed house^[5]."

Performance history and versions

Regina premiered on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre in New York on October 31, 1949 conducted by Maurice Abravanel and directed by Bobby Lewis with choreography by Anna Sokolow. Jane Pickens, formerly of the pop trio the Pickens Sisters, played Regina, and Brenda Lewis was Birdie. The first production received mixed reviews and closed on December 17, 1949^[6].

In 1953, the City Centre Opera produced a different version of the opera with greatly expanded orchestration, giving the work a more "operatic" rather than "Broadway" sound. Bobby Lewis directed again, using the same sets. Brenda Lewis, Birdie in the 1949 cast, now took the lead as Regina. The 1953 production restored the party scene but cut other material^[7]. This production was a success^[8], leading the company to revive the work again in 1958, with still more cuts. The 1958 version completely eliminated the onstage Dixieland band that had been an essential part of Blitzstein's plan for the work^[9]. The 1958 version, which was Hellman's favorite although furthest from the composer's intentions^[10], was recorded.

Regina was revived in 1977 by the Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit and in 1980 by the Houston Grand Opera. The first British Performance was produced in Glasgow in 1991 by the Scottish Opera^[11]. New York City Opera revisited Regina in 1992 and cut music further^[12] from the 1959 version, which had come to be called definitive^[13]. The Scottish Opera production was released as a recording in 1992 by John Mauceri and the Scottish Opera Orchestra, with Katherine Ciesinski (replacing the original Regina, Katherine Terrell^[14]) and Samuel Ramey. This recording included nearly all the music written for the opera^[15]. Both recordings are presently out of print.

Maestro Robert L. Larsen of the Des Moines Metro Opera has championed the opera and produced it in both 1994^[16] and 2008^[17]. The Florida Grand Opera produced a new staging of the work in 2001, with Stewart Robertson conducting. Yet another version of the opera was mounted by the Chicago Lyric Opera in 2003, with much music restored but with many scenes involving the black servants deleted, as the well-intentioned portrayals of black characters had come to seem sentimental and patronizing^[18]. This last production also added lines of dialogue from Hellman's play to clarify the story^[19]. Pacific Opera Victoria^[20] in Victoria, British Columbia and Long Leaf Opera^[21] in Chapel Hill, NC, produced the opera in 2008.

An out-of-print piano/vocal score of Regina was published by Chappell. Subsequently, scholars working with Blitzstein's collected papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin have reinstated music and dialogue excised earlier. Today, a restored Regina can be produced according to Blitstein's intentions^[22], so long overridden in earlier versions.

Roles

Synopsis

Setting: the Deep South in the year 1900

Regina Giddens schemes with her brothers Ben and Oscar for money and power. When her crippled husband Horace opposes her plans, Regina denies him his heart medication and he dies of a heart attack. Their daughter Alexandra, realizing the true cause of Horace's death, finds the strength to leave her mother. Having double-crossed her brothers as well, Regina is left wealthy but alone.

Musical numbers

Musical highlights include the following^[23]:
"Stand where the angels stand," Prologue
"Music, music, music," sung by Birdie, Act I
"The Best Thing of All," sung by Regina, Act I
"What will it be for me?" sung by Alexandra, Act I
"Regina does a lovely party," Act II
"Night Could Be Time to Sleep" (Blues), sung by Addie, Act II
"Consider the rain" (Rain Quartet), Act III
Birdie's Aria ("Lionnet"), Act III
"Greedy Girl," sung by Ben, Act III

Notes

External links

• Excerpt from ''Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein'' by Erik A. Gordon
• ''Brenda Lewis Recalls Marc Blitzstein and Regina'' by Robert Wilder Blue
• Lillian Hellman speaks of ''Regina''
• John Maucieri comments on the "''Regina'' project"

---

Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article