Regina (opera)

Regina (opera)

Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism. 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.

Borrowing from both opera and Broadway styles, in a manner similar to Leonard Bernstein in Trouble in Tahiti and Virgil Thompson in Three Saints in Four Acts, Regina has been said to straddle the line between entertainment and so-called serious music. Hellman gave Blitzstein considerable advice and strongly objected to any departures from the play's structure. Blitzstein planned an elaborate choral prologue, but Hellman convinced him to shorten and finally jettison it. 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. Leonard Bernstein described Regina's relationship to The Little Foxes as "coating the wormwood with sugar, and scenting with magnolia blossoms the cursed house."