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 Legend (opera) The Legend (opera) The Legend is a one-act tragic opera composed by Joseph Carl Breil to an English libretto by Jacques Byrne. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on March 12, 1919 in a triple bill with two other one-act operas, John Hugo's "The Temple Dancer" and Charles Cadman's "Shanewis". Its melodramatic story is set in Muscovadia, a mythical country in the Balkans, and involves an impoverished nobleman turned bandit, his daughter Carmelita, and her lover Stephen, a captain in the hussars. The action unfolds over a single night at the end of which both lovers