http://www.pocketopera.org/
"Pocket Opera is the creation of its Artistic Director, Donald Pippin who, in 1954 began presenting and performing with chamber, Renaissance, and small ensembles in North Beach cabarets. Unexpectedly, these instrumental performances metamorphosed into vocal recitals, culminating with some a number of one-act operas which became wildly popular. Mr. Pippin felt strongly about making opera accessible to as wide an audience as possible and created original English language transcriptions, many of them rarely performed. In 1960, these operas were presented in concert at the Old Spaghetti Factory. In 1977, prompted by the tremendous success of these performances, members of the audience met and incorporated Pocket Opera as a non-profit organization.
By 1979, a subscription series was established, and the size of the audience forced the company out of the cabarets and into the theaters of San Francisco. In the years since, Pocket Opera has performed an annual spring season with a growing repertory of operas. The many achievements of the company include rediscoveries, premieres, and revitalization of works long unjustly neglected--some of them previously unperformed in this country."
The San Francisco Pocket Opera seems to be the oldest pocket opera organization. Did Mr. Pippin invent the term? I don't know. SFPO has a mandate or vision: making opera accessible.
That is not the vision of Voice Afire Pocket Opera and Cabaret. My vision: to recreate the form itself, making music and the voice the servant of the drama - again. To read the letters of traditional opera composers like Mozart or Verdi or Puccini, et al, that would seem have been their purpose as well. But, it seems to me, this traditional opera no longer works. These operas no longer work because in most cases the drama behind them no longer works. Audiences go to hear the voice and the music, not to experience a drama enhanced and elevated by music.
For instance, Carmen. The gipsy throws a rose at Don Jose, and he is immediately in love. Credible only as opera, not as drama. In the original story, it is quite clear that the gipsy is a sorceress - if you buy that as a dramatic possibility.
For instance, Rigoletto, based on Victor Hugo’s verse play, "Le Roi s'Amuse". Has anyone out there read the play? I doubt it would work at all for a contemporary audience.
For instance, Madama Butterfly. There is really no reason in the world why we should accept the idea that Butterfly would fall for Pinkerton. Is it his voice she loves? And Pinkerton! Why should we sympathize with this self-centered egotist? Fact is, in the original play, David Belasco does give us reasons. But of course, they are really not needed in opera, so the Italian librettists excised them.
In the Voice Afire version of Madama Butterfly I have reinstated Belascos reasons. I have tried to recreate the opera in such a way that it actually serves a credible story. Yes, it is all Puccini's music (or most of it), but there are subtle, and not so subtle changes to the libretto.
This version stands on its own. It is not trying to sell opera to hesitant audiences.
http://www.youtube.com/user/voiceafire#p/a/u/2/9jbhpovMlB8
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