Lizzie Borden (opera)
Lizzie Borden is the best known opera by Jack Beeson. It is based on the real-life case of Lizzie Borden.
It was written in 1965 and premiered on March 25, 1965 by the New York City Opera conducted by Anton Coppola. The English libretto is by Kenward Elmslie after a scenario by Richard Plant. It is in three acts and an epilogue.
Famous quotes containing the words lizzie and/or borden:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“I’m a good woman for a bad man.”
—Alexander Hall. Cleo Borden (Mae West)