On the night of his 86th birthday, we meet the legendary Maestro Menotti, impressario,

stage director, librettist and most successful Italian opera composer since Puccini.

Filmed in London, Scotland, Philadelphia, Washington and Spoleto, Italy. 

Featuring Plácido Domingo, and many rare clips from Menotti's greatest works. 

Produced by Alexander Oppersdorff and Michael Stelzer.

Television Premiere:  December 26th, 2000

on CLASSICA in Germany, Austria and Italy 

Through the opera house, Broadway theater, films and electronic media, Menotti has enjoyed

the largest audience of any 20th-century opera composer. A complete man of the theater,

he involves himself with every level of opera production, writing his own librettos and

often acting as casting and stage director.  Although Menotti remained an Italian citizen

and now makes his home in Scotland, he has had such a long and productive career

in the United States that he is generally viewed as an American composer. 

In addition to many commissions, Menotti has twice been awarded Pulitzer Prizes in music

and,  in 1984, was honored by the Kennedy Center for lifetime achievement in the arts.

He was chosen as the 1991 'Musician of the Year' by Musical America. According to critical

appraisal by H. Wiley Hitchcock, "Menotti has combined the theatrical sense of a popular

playwright and a Pucciniesque musical vocabulary with an Italian love of liquid language and

a humane interest in characters as real human beings. The result is opera more accessible

than anyone else's at the time."

Documentary   Running Time Approx 52 mins   4:3 Aspect Ratio