Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Lee Hoiby
Bon Appétit! (1989)
- G Schirmer Inc (World)
- fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, hp, pf, 2vn, va, vc
- fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, pf
- Mezzo Soprano
- 18 min
- Julia Child, adapted by Mark Shulgasser
- English
- 29th March 2025, Avenel Performing Arts Center, Avenel, NJ, United States of America
- 30th March 2025, Avenel Performing Arts Center, Avenel, NJ, United States of America
Programme Note
Cast List
JULIA CHILD: Mezzo-soprano
Synopsis
A comic culinary extravaganza that taps the wit and antics of one of America's best-loved television personalities.
Librettist note:
Bon Appétit! was comprised of two icons of the television age: music draped over the words and gestures of Julia Child, the mother-of-all-foodies, in her black-and-white days; written for Jean Stapleton, famed original-cast, Broadway-musical comedienne, in her late career. The juxtaposition clicked for a few seasons, as a curtain-raiser for the more substantial Italian Lesson. The work lives on by virtue of flamboyant mezzos, piano-accompanied at gala occasions where great quantities of chocolate are consumed.
Two episodes of the second WGBH-TV season were conflated: the race between the whisk and the electric beater comes out of a different cake. Props have been used, or not. Hoiby's music deftly veers around Broadway chansons, early television, and Ravelian apotheosis to underline Julia Child's compelling domestic uplift.
— Mark Shulgasser, librettist