A Streetcar Named Desire (opera)

• Blanche DuBois – Renée Fleming
• Stanley Kowalski – Rod Gilfry
• Stella Kowalski – Elizabeth Futral
• Harold "Mitch" Mitchell – Anthony Dean Griffey
• Eunice Hubbell – Judith Forst
• Steve Hubbell – Matthew Lord
• Newspaper Collector – Jeffrey Lentz
• The Mexican – Josepha Gayer
• Pablo Gonzales – Luis Oropeza
• The Doctor – Ray Reinhardt
• The Nurse – Lynne Soffer

File:A Streetcar Named Desire at Florida Grand Opera - 15.jpg, 2021]]

In a review of the premiere in The New York Times, Bernard Holland observed:

A Streetcar Named Desire is so operatic as a play that one wonders why more than 50 years have passed since its Broadway opening with no opera of note being made of it. ... The new setting of Tennessee Williams's play, with music by André Previn and a libretto by Philip Littell, answered a few questions and asked others.... First of all, it sings very well. Mr. Previn has a fine ear for voices. He knows how to flatter and coax it and send it gracefully from one musical episode to the next ... one had the impression that Mr. Previn had been writing for the musical theater all his life.Holland, Bernard. [https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/21/arts/music-review-pursuing-the-soul-of-streetcar-in-opera.html "Pursuing the Soul of Streetcar in Opera"]. The New York Times. September 21, 1998.

Regarding the music, Holland noted:

There are angry clashes of harmony and key, many Straussian gestures, sweet-as-honey popular melody and the kinds of corporate noodling and mumbling among the strings native to a Ligeti or a Penderecki. Mr. Previn is not ashamed to incorporate Hollywood code words, especially the wailing thrusts of saxophone, trumpet and clarinet to introduce dissolution and lurid sex.

Holland commented on the principal singers as follows:

[A]s beautifully as Renée Fleming sings and as assiduously as she pursues the part, she leaves a hole in the opera that nothing around it can fill. Ms. Fleming does everything an opera singer can do, but I am not sure that Blanche is a character that opera can ever reach. As Stanley in a baritone part, Rodney Gilfry sings strongly and summons the necessary physical menace. Elizabeth Futral made Stella a satisfying operatic character (and) Anthony Dean Griffey sang touchingly and surely in the tenor role of Mitch.

Other reviews have criticized the lengthy libretto (reportedly the Williams estate required a close following of the play), and music that does not advance the characters or action, and does not much suggest New Orleans of the 1940s. A shorter version was produced in San Francisco in 2007.

Subsequent U.S. performances of A Streetcar Named Desire were given in New Orleans (1999–2000); San Diego (2000); Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas (2002); University of Kentucky Opera Theatre (2003),{{cite web |url=http://operalex.org/newsletters/vol2no3spring2003.pdf |title=Streetcar Rolls into "Lexington" |publisher=Lexington Opera Society |date=Spring 2003 |access-date=January 24, 2022}} Virginia Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago (2013), St. Louis (2014), Kentucky Opera{{cite web |url=https://www.louisville.com/content/strong-ensemble-lifts-kentucky-operas-streetcar-named-desire- |title=Strong Ensemble Lifts Kentucky Opera's A Streetcar Named Desire |publisher=Louisville Magazine |access-date=January 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029051814/https://www.louisville.com/content/strong-ensemble-lifts-kentucky-operas-streetcar-named-desire- |archive-date=October 29, 2020}} and Cleveland (2015), Hawaii Opera Theatre (2017), and Opera Company of Middlebury (2018).

The European premiere took place at the Opéra national du Rhin, Strasbourg, France. The opera had its London premiere in June 2003 in a semi-staged version at the Barbican,Clements, Andrew. [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,985955,00.html "Opera: A Streetcar Named Desire"]. The Guardian. June 27, 2003. with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Prévin. Much of the original cast reprised their roles, and Janice Watson replaced Elizabeth Futral as Stella.

Opera Ireland presented the work in November 2006 in Dublin.[http://www.operaireland.com/oi/publisher/index.jsp?nID=150&pID=148 Opera Ireland] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008121126/http://www.operaireland.com/oi/publisher/index.jsp?nID=150&pID=148 |date=October 8, 2007 }} Theater an der Wien, Vienna, performed the opera in 2007,[http://www.theater-wien.at/spielplan/oper/a_streetcar_named_desire/ Vienna] with a cast including Janice Watson as Blanche, Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Stanley, Mary Mills as Stella and Simon O'Neill as Mitch. The Australian premiere, directed by Bruce Beresford, was produced by Opera Australia in August 2007 with Yvonne Kenny as Blanche, Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Stanley, Antoinette Halloran as Stella, and Stuart Skelton as Mitch.{{cite news|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/a-streetcar-named-desire-20070806-gdqr9d.html|title=Review: A Streetcar Named Desire|author=Peter McCallum|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=6 August 2007|access-date=16 March 2023}}[http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/boxoffice/event_details.asp?EventID=1961&sm=1&ss=1 Opera Australia] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070331064929/http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/boxoffice/event_details.asp?EventID=1961&sm=1&ss=1 |date=March 31, 2007 }}

Other performances have been given at the Theater St. Gallen, Switzerland; Giessen, Germany; Turin, Italy; and Tokyo, Japan.[http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=2&ComposerId_2872=1249 Schirmer] In 2017 the first performance in any language other than the original English was given in German at Stralsund and Greifswald (Theatre of West Pomerania), conducted by Florian Csizmadia and staged by Horst Kupich.{{Cite web |url=http://www.theater-vorpommern.de/programm/musiktheater/endstation-sehnsucht/index.html |title=Endstation Sehnsucht |access-date=2017-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201040150/http://www.theater-vorpommern.de/programm/musiktheater/endstation-sehnsucht/index.html |archive-date=2017-12-01 |url-status=dead }}

• {{ill|Frédéric Döhl|de}}: [https://archive.today/20130212074134/http://www.steiner-verlag.de/AfM/1_Doehl.html Movie for the stage? Zu André Previns Opern]. In: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 69/1 (2012), pp. 51–64.
• Frédéric Döhl: About the Task of Adapting a Movie Classic for the Opera Stage: On André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1998) and Brief Encounter (2009). In: Frédéric Döhl & Gregor Herzfeld (eds.): [https://www.waxmann.com/waxmann-buecher/?no_cache=1&tx_p2waxmann_pi2%5Bbuch%5D=BUC123865&tx_p2waxmann_pi2%5Baction%5D=show&tx_p2waxmann_pi2%5Bcontroller%5D=Buch&cHash=ec96dc849f9a682d8cbb3d03381b2523 In Search of the Great American Opera: Tendenzen des amerikanischen Musiktheaters], Münster 2016, {{pp.|147|175}}.
• Philip C. Kolin: Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire. Cambridge 2000, pp. 166–174.
• Lawrence Kramer: [https://web.archive.org/web/20151017063700/http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/1/66.extract "The Great American Opera: Klinghoffer, Streetcar, and the Exception"]. In: The Opera Quarterly 23/1 (2007), {{p.|66|80}}.
• David McKee: [https://web.archive.org/web/20151017063700/http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/4/718.citation A Streetcar Named Desire. André Previn]. In: The Opera Quarterly 16/4 (2000), p. 718–723.
• Sam Staggs: When Blanche Met Brando. The Scandalous Story of A Streetcar Named Desire. New York 2005, pp. 304–319.

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• [https://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=4314 San Diego OperaTalk! with Nick Reveles: A Streetcar Named Desire]
• {{YouTube|uhM-ro_6E8I|Trailer}}, Lyric Opera of Chicago 2013: Renée Fleming, Susanna Phillips, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Anthony Dean Griffey; Evan Rogister conducting

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Category:Operas by André Previn

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