"The Telephone" Opera Buffa in One Act
performed Jan 16, 2005

Gian Carlo Menotti was born in Northern Italy in 1911 into a cultured family. He began to compose songs at the age of seven, and operas four years later. In 1923, he enrolled at the Milan Conservatory, but after his father's death his mother took him to the United States, to the Curtis Institute of Music where he was to study with Rosario Scalero and find his lifelong friend, companion, and collaborator, Samuel Barber, who was also a Curtis student.

Celebrity arrived with Menotti's one-act opera buffa Amelia goes to the Ball. A CBS commission followed, then ballet, a piano concerto and international success with the operas The Medium and The Telephone. Two subsequent operas won Pulitzer prizes, and his children's opera for television Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) has become an enduring classic.

The Telephone was originally written for production by the Ballet Society, and premiered along with The Medium at the Heckscher Theater, New York City, on February 18, 1947. Both pieces were huge successes, and remain the most performed of Menotti's works after Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Synopsis: Lucy and Ben, two "well-nourished young Americans," are a happy young couple. Ben has to go away, so he calls on Lucy with a present - all an excuse to visit Lucy and ask her to marry him. But the telephone - an awkward third party - always rings at the crucial moment and clueless Lucy is lost in endless, meaningless chats. Ben tries everything, even "telephonicide," but only succeeds in making Lucy angry. In the end, Ben has only one option, predictable but effective nonetheless: Ben leaves for the station and telephones Lucy, pops the question, and wins the hand he so earnestly seeks. The opera ends with the couple dreaming of a house in the suburbs, a garden, and lots of happy children.

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