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The Saint of Bleecker Street [Masterworks Broadway]
Opera composer Gian-Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) first found himself on Broadway in 1947 when a chamber production of two one-act operas — The Medium and The Telephone — was unexpectedly transferred to the Barrymore. Opera on Broadway was highly uncommon then and now, but the artistic success and six-month run resulted in a new opera specifically written for Broadway, The Consul. Which opened in 1950, also at the Barrymore. (Coming between the two Menotti bookings was that T. Williams play about Blanche, Stanley and Stella.) The Consul earned considerable acclaim, with Menotti taking home both the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

This double success translated into a commission from NBC for a television opera, telecast on Christmas eve of 1951: Amahl and the Night Visitors. Which had an impressively large audience for the time, and was rebroadcast annually until 1965. Menotti's next opera was another Broadway original, The Saint of Bleecker Street, which opened Christmas week of 1954 at the Broadway. And which won Menotti another matched set from the Critics Circle and Pulitzer people. And which Masterworks Broadway has finally brought to CD.

I am an especial fan of The Medium, which is grandly chilling and grand fun. (The Medium, that is, not The Telephone.) I have over time developed a fondness for The Consul, which — being a Cold War exercise — does not have the peaks and chills of The Medium. The Saint of Bleecker Street, though, is new to me; I've never heard this recording. I have heard the 2002 cast album of the Spoleto Festival production, which I found less than compelling.

The original Broadway cast album is compelling, in the manner of The Medium. Annina is the Saint of Bleecker Street, a sickly young girl of Little Italy who sees religious visions and bears the marks of the stigmata (which is to say, wounds on the hands corresponding to those of the Crucifixion). Michele, her older brother, is both outcast to the Italian-American community and an atheist; he rejects the notion that Annina can perform miracles, accusing the Church of exploiting his ailing sister. Nobody, needless to say, ends up happy.

The leading roles are sung by David Poleri, Gloria Lane and Gabrielle Ruggierio. The only one I'm familiar with is Ms. Lane, who plays Desideria. (She makes a late entrance, early in the second act; has a couple of flashy arias; and gets herself killed on stage. Hence, second star billing.) Menotti fans will know Lane from The Consul, where she played the secretary at the consulate. She also turned up in this column, last month, singing Nettie in the Masterworks Broadway reissue of the 1955 studio cast recording of Carousel.

Also on hand, as the priest Don Marco, is Leon Lishner — the sinister Secret Police agent in The Consul, and King Balthazar in at least ten telecasts of Amahl and the Night Visitors. John Reardon is in the chorus, while the character ("A Young Man") singing a not-inconsequential solo in the opening number is none other than Reid Shelton, 20-odd years before he became Warbucked.