The NBC Opera Theatre (sometimes mistakenly spelled NBC Opera Theater and sometimes referred to as the NBC Opera Company) was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of televising both established and new operas for television in English. Additionally, the company also gave live theatrical presentations of operas, sponsoring several touring productions in the United States and mounting works on Broadway.[1]
Conductor Peter Herman Adler, 1951.
Conductor Peter Herman Adler served as the NBCOT's music and artistic director, and Samuel Chotzinoff as the company's producer. Conductor Herbert Grossman was an associate conductor with the company when it was founded, but was later promoted to conductor in 1956.[2] From that point on Adler and Grossman shared the conducting load while Adler remained Music Director. NBC disbanded the NBC Opera Theatre in 1964 and liquidated its assets. The company performed a total of 43 operas for NBC, the majority of which were broadcast on the program NBC Television Opera Theatre. The organization's work garnered 3 Primetime Emmy Award nominations. All of the performances were broadcast live from an NBC studio and were not pre-recorded or edited before airing, although kinescopes and later videotapes were made of live broadcasts for delayed broadcast purposes in some areas.[1]
During its 14-year history, the NBC Opera Theatre commissioned several composers to write operas specifically for television. The most famous and most successful of these works was the very first new opera staged by the company, Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, which premiered live on December 24, 1951 as the first installment of the Hallmark Hall of Fame program. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in America.[3] Other operas commissioned by the company included Bohuslav Martinů's The Marriage (1953),[4] Lukas Foss' Griffelkin (1955),[5] Norman Dello Joio's The Trial at Rouen (1956),[6] Leonard Kastle's The Swing,[7] Stanley Hollingsworth's La Grande Bretèche (1957), Menotti's Maria Golovin (1958), Philip Bezanson's Golden Child (1960),[8] Kastle's Deseret (1961) and Menotti's Labyrinth (1963).[9]
Most NBC Opera telecasts were sponsored by Texaco, who was also the longtime sponsor of radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. Nearly all NBCOT presentations after the middle 1950s were broadcast in color.
^ ab"Less Tuneful Season in the Offing for TV" by Larry Wolters, The Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1964
^"Baltimore Symphony Conductor Heads Orchestra Of 85 In Music Assoc. Concert Thursday Evening". Meriden Journal. February 24, 1959.
^Obituary: Gian Carlo Menotti, The Daily Telegraph, 2 February 2007. Accessed 11 December 2008
^Olin Downes (February 8, 1953). "MARTINU'S OPERA SCORES IN TV BOW; ' The Marriage,' Based on Play by Gogol, Offered by N.B.C. in Excellent Production". The New York Times.
^Howard Taubman (November 7, 1955). "Griffelkin' Has Premiere on N.B.C.-TV; Fantasy Is Marked by Charm, Tenderness". The New York Times.
^Norman Dello Joio (July 27, 2008). "Challenge of Joan; Composer Relates Effort In Trying to Meet It". The New York Times.
^Jennifer Barnes (2003). Television Opera. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. p. 103. ISBN 9780851159126.
^Harold C. Schonberg (December 17, 1960). "TV: A Christmas Opera; ' Golden Child,' Nativity Set in California Gold Fields of 1849, Has Premiere" (PDF). The New York Times.
^Harold C. Schonberg (March 4, 1963). "Music: Menotti Opera; 'Labyrinth' on TV Is Not His Best". The New York Times.
commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC OperaTheatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was...
Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written for television, which he made with the NBCOperaTheatre. Allen was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, and...
he performed Guglielmo on a television broadcast of the opera made by the NBCOperaTheatre with John Alexander as Ferrando and Frances Bible as Dorabella...
Massachusetts, to an audience of nearly 3,000 people. The NBCOperaTheatre subsequently presented the opera on television in November 1952, a production which...
after a war. The work was commissioned by Peter Herman Adler of the NBCOperaTheatre. Its first performance was at the International Exposition Pavilion...
translation of the libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder for an NBCOperaTheatre production of the opera by Mozart). New York: Random House. Anne Boleyn (1959;...
Menotti. His television opera Labyrinth was premiered by the NBCOperaTheatre. Unlike Amahl and the Night Visitors, this opera was never intended to be...
director of the NBCOperaTheatre (1950–64) and the National Educational Television Opera. He was a pioneer of televised broadcast of opera, commissioning...
[citation needed] She frequently toured with the NBCOperaTheatre (NBCOT) and the New York City Opera (NYCO). With the NBCOT she notably created the role...
Night Visitors (1951). The latter opera was made by the NBCOperaTheatre, and McKinley filmed several more operas with that organization during his career...
All three were available on YouTube. Kinescopes of NBCOperaTheatre performances are locked in NBC vaults and have never been released on disc or videotape...
entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal...
Delius's Requiem in 1950. He was one of the founding members of the NBCOperaTheatre, a company he performed with throughout the 1950s in such productions...
world premieres of four of his operas. He performed in many productions with the New York City Opera and the NBCOperaTheatre during the 1950s and early...
telecast by the NBCOperaTheatre. Following the success of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, NBC decided to present new operas by other American...
CBS program Your Town and Ours. Bolin appeared on television in the NBCOperaTheatre production of Suor Angelica, in which she played the Princess, and...
made several recordings of complete operas with the American Opera Society (AOS) on disc and the NBCOperaTheatre for television. Hurley was born in Allentown...
American actress. After beginning her career in theatre in the 1960s, Bedelia starred in the CBS daytime soap opera Love of Life and made her film debut in The...
nationally broadcast performance of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with the NBCOperaTheatre. In 1958, he created the role of The Doctor in Barber's Vanessa. In...
George (Booth Theatre, Broadway; PBS American Playhouse broadcast 1986) Barnum (West End with Michael Crawford) Candide (New York City Opera) Show Boat (Great...
comedy show - The Ernie Kovacs Show Serious and musical series - NBCOperaTheatre Light musical production - The Bachelor New series - The Kaiser Aluminum...
Young. The opera was commissioned for television by the NBCOperaTheatre and was first broadcast in 1961. This was followed by a second opera for television...
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