Performance History and Versions
Regina premiered on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre in New York on October 31, 1949 conducted by Maurice Abravanel and directed by Bobby Lewis with choreography by Anna Sokolow. Jane Pickens, formerly of the pop trio the Pickens Sisters, played Regina, and Brenda Lewis was Birdie. The first production received mixed reviews and closed on December 17, 1949.
In 1953, the City Centre Opera produced a different version of the opera with greatly expanded orchestration, giving the work a more "operatic" rather than "Broadway" sound. Bobby Lewis directed again, using the same sets. Brenda Lewis, Birdie in the 1949 cast, now took the lead as Regina. The 1953 production restored the party scene but cut other material. This production was a success, leading the company to revive the work again in 1958, with still more cuts. The 1958 version completely eliminated the onstage Dixieland band that had been an essential part of Blitzstein's plan for the work. The 1958 version, which was Hellman's favorite although furthest from the composer's intentions, was recorded.
The first major revival of Regina since the 1958 production was in 1977, in Detroit, by the Michigan Opera Theatre with John Yaffé, conductor, directed by Frank Rizzo, design by Franco Colavecchia, choreographed by Grethe Barrett Holby. It was again produced in 1980, by the Houston Grand Opera. The first British Performance was produced in Glasgow in 1991 by the Scottish Opera. New York City Opera revisited Regina in 1992 and cut music further from the 1959 version, which had come to be called definitive. The Scottish Opera production was released as a recording in 1992 by John Mauceri and the Scottish Opera Orchestra, with Katherine Ciesinski (replacing the original Regina, Katherine Terrell) and Samuel Ramey. This recording included nearly all the music written for the opera.
Maestro Robert L. Larsen of the Des Moines Metro Opera has championed the opera and produced it in both 1994 and 2008. The Florida Grand Opera produced a new staging of the work in 2001, with Stewart Robertson conducting. Yet another version of the opera was mounted by the Chicago Lyric Opera in 2003, with much music restored but with many scenes involving the black servants deleted, as the well-intentioned portrayals of black characters had come to seem sentimental and patronizing. This last production also added lines of dialogue from Hellman's play to clarify the story. Pacific Opera Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia and Long Leaf Opera in Chapel Hill, NC, produced the opera in 2008.
An out-of-print piano/vocal score of Regina was published by Chappell. Subsequently, scholars working with Blitzstein's collected papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin have reinstated music and dialogue excised earlier. Today, a restored Regina can be produced according to Blitzstein's intentions, so long overridden in earlier versions.
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