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
Claire Gibault "West Side Story". She has also conducted "Pelléas et Mélisande" (Covent Garden, London), "Le Comte Ory" (Glyndebourne Festival), "Cosi fan tutte" (Opera North), Chabrier's "L'étoile" (Edinburgh Festival), "Zaïde" and "Der Schauspieldirektor" (Bastille), "L'Enfant et les Sortilèges" (Châtelet), Boîeldieu's "La Dame Blanche" (Opéra-Comique, Paris), "Mitridate", "La Donna del lago", "Die Zauberflöte", "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Bastien und Bastienne" (Nice), "La Clemenza di Tito" (Orléans), "La Traviata" (Nancy), "Idomeneo" and "Cosi fan tutte" (Liège), "Maria Stuarda" (Torino), "La Cenerentola" (Rome) and "Les Oiseaux de passage" (Bologna). She was Claudio Abbado's assistant for "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the Royal Opera House, La