French Opera in English (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781546419808)

Donald Pippin is the Artistic Director and founder of San Francisco's Pocket Opera. Born in Zebulon, NC and educated at Harvard, Donald began his career as a pianist/accompanist at Balanchine's School for American Ballet in New York. He moved to S.F. in 1952 and has been an integral part of the city's artistic life since then. Donald's first translation came in 1968, in the course of preparing Mozart's one-act opera "Bastien und Bastienne" for performance as part of his chamber music series. The opera, and his singing translation of it, were immediate successes with audiences. From that point on, Donald dedicated himself to the task of producing singable, intelligible, and literate English versions of both well-loved classics and lesser-known gems of operatic literature. His repertoire has grown to include over sixty translations, many of which have been used by the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center, S.F. Opera Center, San Diego Opera, Juilliard School of Music, and Aspen Music Festival, to name a few.