William M. Hoffman (1939–2017)
Auteur de As Is
A propos de l'auteur
William Moses Hoffman was born in Manhattan, New York on April 12, 1939. He received a bachelor's degree in English and Latin from the City College of New York. He began his career as a book editor at Hill and Wang, where he published gay and lesbian playwrights in the New American Plays series and afficher plus in the 1979 anthology Gay Plays: The First Collection. He was a professor of journalism, communication and theater at Lehman College of the City University of New York. He wrote or co-wrote several plays including Cornbury: The Queen's Governor written with Anthony Holland, Riga, and As Is, which won the 1985 Drama Desk and Obie Awards for outstanding new production. He adapted the play for television in 1986. He wrote the libretto for John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles. He also wrote for the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. He died of cardiac arrest on April 29, 2017 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Œuvres de William M. Hoffman
Cornbury 1 exemplaire
Riga A New Play 1 exemplaire
John Corigliano: The Ghosts of Versailles — Librettist — 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom légal
- Hoffman, William Moses
- Date de naissance
- 1939-04-12
- Date de décès
- 2017-04-29
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieu de naissance
- New York, New York, USA
- Lieu du décès
- Bronx, New York, USA
- Cause du décès
- cardiac arrest
- Études
- City College of New York (BA|English and Latin|1960)
- Professions
- playwright
book editor
professor - Organisations
- Hill and Wang
Lehman College, City University of New York
CUNY-TV - Courte biographie
- William M. Hoffman's play As Is was one of the first plays addressing the lives of gay men during the AIDS crisis. He is survived by his husband, William Russell Taylor II.
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 9
- Aussi par
- 3
- Membres
- 345
- Popularité
- #69,185
- Évaluation
- 4.0
- Critiques
- 3
- ISBN
- 15
John Corigliano's opera premiered at the Met in 1991 and has had major productions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1995) and Los Angeles Opera (2015). It is based on La Mère coupable, the final play in Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy. All three plays were adapted into operas numerous times, but of course we are familiar with the first two installments: The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart). Versailles, however, is a different kind of adaptation, more of a reworking.
Years after her death in the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette and her court are depressed ghosts, loitering pointlessly at Versailles as they mourn the world they have lost. Beaumarchais, also a ghost in her world, is in love with the Queen and determines to both win her love and rewrite history, to save her from the guillotine. To do so, Beaumarchais stages an elaborate new Figaro play, and the lines between their "real" world and the fictional world quickly begin to blur.
A self-consciously "grand" opera, which often parodies conventions of both Mozart's age and others, Corigliano's work is extravagant and thus expensive, which is one reason its performances have been limited. But it offers gorgeous opportunities from a technical standpoint and a musical one. The score presents faux-Mozartian jewels (Figaro's grand aria, particularly), contemporary classical writing, especially in the vocal line for Marie Antoinette, and delicious character pieces, from the self-consciously evil villain Bégearss to the (deliberate) Oriental stereotype of the Turkish singer Samira, performed at the work's premiere by Marilyn Horne, and in 2015 by Patti LuPone.
Utterly bonkers but continuously exquisite, with enough to entertain both the old school and the new. It would be a delight to see the three 'Figaro' operas performed by a company in a single year, but sadly Corigliano's work remains one of those obscure gems.… (plus d'informations)