{"id":75918,"date":"2023-03-19T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-19T04:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/operawire.com\/?p=75918"},"modified":"2023-03-17T13:51:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T17:51:59","slug":"opera-profile-marc-blitzens-reuben-reuben-blitzen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/operawire.com\/opera-profile-marc-blitzens-reuben-reuben-blitzen\/","title":{"rendered":"Opera Profile: Marc Blitzstein&#8217;s &#8216;Reuben, Reuben&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reuben,_Reuben_(opera)\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reuben, Reuben<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a two-act \u201curban folk opera\u201d or \u201cmusical play\u201d written by American composer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marc_Blitzstein\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marc Blitzstein <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1905-1964) in 1955. He is most noted for his off-Broadway adaptation of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/operawire.com\/opera-profile-weill-brechts-unique-rise-fall-of-the-city-of-mahagonny\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kurt Weill<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bertolt_Brecht\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Berthold Brecht<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Threepenny_Opera\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Threepenny Opera<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Despite\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"mw-page-title-main\">Blitzstein<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s many works, his name is relatively unknown today nor his opera remembered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The opera\u2019s central story is based on the Faust legend as popularized by playwright <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and composers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_Gounod\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Charles Gounod<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Georges_Bizet\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Georges Bizet<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In describing the work\u00a0<span class=\"mw-page-title-main\">Blitzstein\u00a0<\/span>called it a \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">picture of New York: the gaiety, plight, awareness and unawareness of anger, bitterness, insouciance, ardor, urgency, even wisdom, mellowness. All trapped: fighting the trap, or supine within it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Work on the opera formally began in 1953, although an earlier showing was scheduled for March of 1950. The work was a response to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gian_Carlo_Menotti\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gian Carlo Menotti<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and his opera <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Consul\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Consul<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. By 1954, work was beginning to go slow and\u00a0<span class=\"mw-page-title-main\">Blitzstein<\/span> had showed a desire to finish the project quickly. Editing did not stop until its premiere on October 10, 1955. However, only nine years and the opera would be relatively forgotten, having fallen out of performance and memory alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The work has many influences from both literature, philosophy, and music. American writers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/F._Scott_Fitzgerald\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Faulkner\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">William Faulkner<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to British figures like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Shakespeare\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">William Shakespeare<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Keats\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">John Keats<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, even <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Homer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Homer<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aristotle\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aristotle<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are present in the story\u2019s usage of symbolism. Musically,<span class=\"mw-page-title-main\">Blitzstein<\/span> was inspired by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leonard_Bernstein\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leonard Bernstein<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Age_of_Anxiety\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Symphony No. 2<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/La_traviata\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">La traviata<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<span class=\"mw-page-title-main\">Blitzstei<\/span>n had used the operas a musical and dramatic model for his own opera.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite the intense plot and music, the opera was not well received by Boston audiences during its premiere, and was considered unready by the press. However, Bernstein had called the work a \u201cfallen angel\u201d and had named his daughter after the main heroine, Nina.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reuben, Reuben is a two-act \u201curban folk opera\u201d or \u201cmusical play\u201d written by American composer Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) in 1955. He is most noted for his off-Broadway adaptation of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht\u2019s\u00a0 The Threepenny Opera. Despite\u00a0Blitzstein\u2019s many works, his name is relatively unknown today nor his opera remembered.\u00a0 The opera\u2019s central story is based on the Faust legend&nbsp;{&hellip;}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":75919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1858],"tags":[3995,18676],"class_list":["post-75918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opera-wiki","tag-marc-blitzstein","tag-reuben"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Opera Profile: Marc Blitzstein&#039;s &#039;Reuben, Reuben&#039; - OperaWire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Composer Marc Blitzstein is most noted for his off-Broadway adaptation of Kurt Weil and Berthold Brecht\u2019s\u00a0 The Threepenny Opera.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/operawire.com\/opera-profile-marc-blitzens-reuben-reuben-blitzen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opera Profile: Marc Blitzstein&#039;s &#039;Reuben, Reuben&#039; - 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