Frank Corsaro
Encyclopedia
Frank Corsaro is one of America's foremost stage directors of opera
and theatre. His Broadway
productions include The Night of the Iguana
(with Bette Davis
, 1961).
Corsaro attended De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx
, and had attended Immaculata High School in Manhattan
before returning to DeWitt Clinton.
Corsaro made his operatic directing debut at the New York City Opera
in 1958, with a staging of Carlisle Floyd
's Susannah
. It was this production that the company took to the Brussels World's Fair that year, starring Phyllis Curtin
, Norman Treigle
and Richard Cassilly
. He was to become one of the City Opera's leading directors, creating such important productions as The Fiery Angel (by Prokofiev
), La traviata
(with Patricia Brooks
and Plácido Domingo
), Madama Butterfly
, The Crucible
(featuring Chester Ludgin
), Faust
(with Beverly Sills
and Treigle), Prince Igor
(by Borodin
), The Makropulos Affair (with Maralin Niska
), Summer and Smoke
(by Lee Hoiby
), Médée
(in the Italian version), Die tote Stadt
(with Carol Neblett
), The Cunning Little Vixen
(in designs by Maurice Sendak
), Alban Berg
's Lulu
(with Ronald Chase
), and Carmen
.
Corsaro directed the world premieres of two of Floyd's later operas, Of Mice and Men
(1970) and Flower and Hawk (1972). He made his Metropolitan Opera
debut in 1984, with Handel
's Rinaldo
, starring Marilyn Horne
and Samuel Ramey
.
Corsaro has written several libretti
for operas. These include Heloise and Abelard by Stephen Paulus
and Frau Margot
by Thomas Pasatieri
whose opera, The Seagull
, he directed at its premiere.
As an actor, Corsaro appeared in the 1968 film, Rachel, Rachel
(as Hector Jonas), opposite Joanne Woodward
, directed by her husband, Paul Newman
. In 1988, he became the head of the Actors Studio
.
Corsaro has a son, Andrew, and two grandsons, Matthew and Mason.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and theatre. His Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
productions include The Night of the Iguana
The Night of the Iguana
The Night of the Iguana is a stageplay written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961. Two film adaptations have been made, including the Academy Award-winning 1964 film of the same name....
(with Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, 1961).
Corsaro attended De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, and had attended Immaculata High School in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
before returning to DeWitt Clinton.
Corsaro made his operatic directing debut at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
in 1958, with a staging of Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's Susannah
Susannah
Susannah is an opera in two acts by American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending...
. It was this production that the company took to the Brussels World's Fair that year, starring Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...
, Norman Treigle
Norman Treigle
Norman Treigle was an American operatic bass-baritone, who was acclaimed for his great abilities as a singing-actor, and specialized in roles that evoked villainy and terror....
and Richard Cassilly
Richard Cassilly
Richard Cassilly was an American operatic tenor who had a major international opera career between 1954 and 1990...
. He was to become one of the City Opera's leading directors, creating such important productions as The Fiery Angel (by Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
), La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
(with Patricia Brooks
Patricia Brooks
Patricia Brooks , was a lyric soprano, actress, and opera singer, who performed primarily with the New York City Opera. She was known for her acting ability as much as for her voice.-Biography:...
and Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
), Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
, The Crucible
The Crucible (opera)
The Crucible is an English language opera written by Robert Ward based on the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. The libretto was lightly adapted from Miller's text by Bernard Stambler.Ward received a...
(featuring Chester Ludgin
Chester Ludgin
-Biography:Chester Ludgin was a native of Brooklyn, New York. He made his professional debut in 1956 with The Experimental Opera Theatre of America , as Baron Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, conducted by Renato Cellini and directed by Armando Agnini...
), Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
(with Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
and Treigle), Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
(by Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
), The Makropulos Affair (with Maralin Niska
Maralin Niska
Maralin Niska is an acclaimed operatic soprano, well known as a singing-actress.Born in San Pedro, California, Niska studied under Louise Mansfield, Lotte Lehmann, and primarily Ernest St. John Metz...
), Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
(by Lee Hoiby
Lee Hoiby
Lee Henry Hoiby was an American composer and classical pianist. Best known as a composer of operas and songs, he was a disciple of composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Like Menotti, his works championed lyricism during a time when such compositions were deemed old fashioned and irrelevant to modern society...
), Médée
Médée (Cherubini)
Médée is a French language opéra-comique by Luigi Cherubini.The libretto by François-Benoît Hoffmann was based on Euripides' tragedy of Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée....
(in the Italian version), Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott , and is based on Bruges-la-Morte, a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.-Performance history:When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23...
(with Carol Neblett
Carol Neblett
Carol Neblett is an American operatic soprano.-Life and career:Neblett studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1969, made her operatic debut with the New York City Opera, playing the part of Musetta in Puccini's La bohème...
), The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...
(in designs by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
), Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
(with Ronald Chase
Ronald Chase
Ronald Chase is an American artist, photographer, educator, independent film maker and opera designer. His work with projection and film has been called "one of the most exciting developments in the history of opera stage presentation."...
), and Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
.
Corsaro directed the world premieres of two of Floyd's later operas, Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men (opera)
Of Mice and Men is an opera in three acts by the American composer Carlisle Floyd. The English libretto was written by Floyd and is based on the novella of the same name by John Steinbeck. The opera was composed in 1969.- History :...
(1970) and Flower and Hawk (1972). He made his Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
debut in 1984, with Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Rinaldo
Rinaldo (opera)
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's...
, starring Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
and Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Edward Ramey is an American operatic bass with a long, distinguished career.During his best years, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, yet power...
.
Corsaro has written several libretti
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for operas. These include Heloise and Abelard by Stephen Paulus
Stephen Paulus
Stephen Paulus is an American composer, best known for his operas and choral music. His best-known piece is his 1982 opera The Postman Always Rings Twice, one of several operas he has written for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, which prompted The New York Times to call him "a young man on the road...
and Frau Margot
Frau Margot
Frau Margot is an opera in 3 acts by composer Thomas Pasatieri. The work uses an English language libretto by Frank Corsaro which is based on Corsaro's play Lyric Suite. The opera's premiere was presented by the Fort Worth Opera on June 2, 2007. Corsaro directed the production which used sets by...
by Thomas Pasatieri
Thomas Pasatieri
Thomas Pasatieri is an American opera composer.He began composing at age 10 and, as a teenager, studied with Nadia Boulanger...
whose opera, The Seagull
The Seagull (opera)
The Seagull is an opera in 3 acts by Thomas Pasatieri to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie. The plot is based on Anton Chekhov's 1896 play, The Seagull.-Performance History:...
, he directed at its premiere.
As an actor, Corsaro appeared in the 1968 film, Rachel, Rachel
Rachel, Rachel
Rachel, Rachel is a 1968 American drama film produced and directed by Paul Newman. The screenplay by Stewart Stern is based on the 1966 novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence.-Plot:...
(as Hector Jonas), opposite Joanne Woodward
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman...
, directed by her husband, Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
. In 1988, he became the head of the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
.
Corsaro has a son, Andrew, and two grandsons, Matthew and Mason.