A Streetcar Named Desire (opera)

In a review of the premiere in The New York Times, Bernard Holland observed: A Streetcar Named Desire is so operatic as a play that one wonders why more than 50 years have passed since its Broadway opening with no opera of note being made of it.

[4] Regarding the music, Holland noted: There are angry clashes of harmony and key, many Straussian gestures, sweet-as-honey popular melody and the kinds of corporate noodling and mumbling among the strings native to a Ligeti or a Penderecki.

[4]Other reviews have criticized the lengthy libretto (reportedly the Williams estate required a close following of the play), and music that does not advance the characters or action, and does not much suggest New Orleans of the 1940s.

[8] Theater an der Wien, Vienna, performed the opera in 2007,[9] with a cast including Janice Watson as Blanche, Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Stanley, Mary Mills as Stella and Simon O'Neill as Mitch.

The Australian premiere, directed by Bruce Beresford, was produced by Opera Australia in August 2007 with Yvonne Kenny as Blanche, Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Stanley, Antoinette Halloran as Stella, and Stuart Skelton as Mitch.

[12] In 2017 the first performance in any language other than the original English was given in German at Stralsund and Greifswald (Theatre of West Pomerania), conducted by Florian Csizmadia and staged by Horst Kupich.