Opera
- Malcolm Arnold – The Open Window, Op. 56 (opera in one act, libretto by S. Gilliat, after Saki), premiered on December 14, 1956 on BBC TV
- Leonard Bernstein – Candide (comic operetta in two acts, libretto by Lillian Hellman, R. Wilbur, J. La Touche, D. Parker, and Bernstein, after Voltaire)
- William Bergsma – The Wife of Martin Guerre (opera in three acts, libretto by J. Lewis)
- Wolfgang Fortner – Bluthochzeit (opera in two acts, after Federico García Lorca)
- Arnold Franchetti – The Game of Cards (opera in one act, libretto by the composer)
- Kenneth Gaburo – Blur (opera in one act, libretto by the composer)
- Hans Werner Henze – König Hirsch (opera in three acts, libretto by H. von Cramer, after Carlo Gozzi)
- Ben Johnston – Gertrude, or Would She Be Pleased to Receive It? (chamber opera in two acts, libretto by W. Leach)
- Leonard Kastle – The Swing (thirteen-minute television opera, broadcast at noon on Sunday, June 10, 1956 on NBC television)
- Frank Martin – Der Sturm (opera in three acts, libretto after William Shakespeare, in a German translation by A.W. von Schlege)
- Douglas Moore – The Ballad of Baby Doe
- Gino Negri – Vieni qui, Carla (opera in one act, after Alberto Moravia's Gli indifferenti)
- Elie Siegmeister – Miranda and the Dark Young Man (opera in one act, libretto by Edward Eager)
- Robert Ward – He Who Gets Slapped (libretto by Bernard Stambler), staged under the title Pantaloon
Read more about this topic: 1956 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word opera:
“Opera once was an important social instrument—especially in Italy. With Rossini and Verdi people were listening to opera together and having the same catharsis with the same story, the same moral dilemmas. They were holding hands in the darkness. That has gone. Now perhaps they are holding hands watching television.”
—Luciano Berio (b. 1925)
“I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”
—Anonymous.
A modern proverb along the lines of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” This form of words has no precise origin, though both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th ed., 1992)