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 Mistress of the Inn giocoso". In 1800 the German composer Simon Mayr and Italian librettist Gaetano Rossi adapted it as a two-act "dramma giocoso". The American composer Henry Kimball Hadley adapted it as a one-act comic opera called "Bianca", which was first performed in 1918. Bohuslav Martinů also produced an operatic version, his three-act "Mirandolina", which was first performed in 1959. The play was also adapted into several films, notably Paolo Cavara's "La locandiera" and Tinto Brass' "Miranda". The Mistress of the Inn The Mistress of the Inn ( ), also translated as "The Innkeeper Woman" or "Mirandolina" (after the play's main character), is