Opera Career
Mr. Mauceri’s professional operatic conducting debut was at Wolf Trap in 1973 (Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street). The next summer took him to Santa Fe for anew production of Alban Berg’s Lulu, as well as his debut in Spoleto, Italy with the European premiere of Menotti’s Tamu Tamu, directed by the composer who had attended one of Mauceri’s Wolftrap performances the previous summer. Mr. Mauceri’s operatic career has included the west coast premiere of Britten’s Death in Venice (SanFrancisco, 1975), music directorship of the Kennedy Center’s summer opera at the Terrace Theater (1979), as well as the Washington Opera, where he led important new productions of Dominic Argento’s A Postcard from Morocco, Donizetti’s il Furioso all’isola di San Domingo, Montemezzi’s l’Amore dei tre rei, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Gian Carlo Menotti’s production of la Bohême. His career subsequently has taken him to La Scala (Turandot, A Quiet Place), the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (la Bohême, Madama Butterfly, la Fanciulla del West and les Troyens), theMetropolitan Opera (Fidelio, Roméo et Juliette - last national tour), the Opéra de Monte Carlo (Madama Butterfly – last production of legendary Margherita Wallmann, TheRake’s Progress), the San Francisco Opera (Lulu, Angle of Repose [Andre Imbrie], The Rake’s Progress, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Chicago Lyric Opera (la Bohême, Regina, Millennium Park Gala Concert, 2005, Roméo et Juliette, and les Pecheurs de Perles). In 1977 he made his New York City Opera debut also conducted a wide variety of repertory including Mefistofele, l’Incorronazione di Poppea, Don Giovanni, StreetScene (televised on “Live from Lincoln Center), Manon, il Barbiere di Siviglia, The Makropoulos Case and Menotti’s Juana la Loca, which marked Beverly Sills’ final operatic performances. Mr. Mauceri made his sensational British opera debut with theWelsh Opera (Don Carlos 1974) and followed that with the Scottish Opera (Otello, 1976) and the English National Opera (la Forza del Destino, 1982), which received unanimous praise in London’s fourteen daily and weekly newspapers.
From 1986 until 1993 he served as music director of Scottish Opera and conducted important new productions of Billy Budd, Aida, Lulu, Carmen, Salome, das Rheingold,Street Scene [British premiere], Regina [British premiere], la Traviata, la Forza delDestino [new performing edition conflating St. Petersburg and Milan versions made byMauceri], die Walküre, Norma and les Troyens, which traveled triumphantly to the RoyalOpera House, Covent Garden. His editions of Regina and Candide for Scottish opera are published and considered definitive. During his tenure, the company made its first complete opera recordings (for Decca) of Street Scene and Regina as well as a recital album with Josephine Barstow that include the first and only recording of the original Alfano ending to Puccini’s unfinished opera, Turandot.
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