Pocket Opera North Beach, through nearly two decades of presenting a weekly chamber music series (1960-1978) at the Old Spaghetti Factory, to his present-day fame as the creator of one of San Francisco's most popular operatic institutions. Pippin'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 San Francisco audiences. From that point on, Pippin has dedicated himself to the task of producing literate English versions of both well-loved classics and lesser-known gems of
The Mandarin's Son The Mandarin's Son The Mandarin's Son ("Сын мандарина" in Cyrillic; "Syn mandarina" in transliteration) is comic opera in one act by César Cui, composed in 1859. The libretto, which includes spoken dialogue, was written by Viktor Krylov. No small influence for this work came from the French composer Daniel Auber, particularly his "Le cheval de bronze", which had a similar setting, and was being performed in Saint Petersburg at the time. Cui dedicated this opera to his bride, Mal'vina Bamberg. (They had married the previous year.) The orchestration is credited to Mily Balakirev. The first performance of "The Mandarin's Son"