Magdalena: a Musical Adventure

Magdalena premiered at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera on 26 July 1948, pursuant to a commission from Edwin Lester, president of that organization.

Arthur Kay conducted Irra Petina, Dorothy Sarnoff, John Raitt, Hugo Haas, Gerhard Pechner, A. Garcia, Melva Niles, Henry Reese, Ferdinand Hilt, J. Arthur, Betty Huff, Christine Matsios, Leonard Morganthaler, John Schickling, Lorraine Miller, Gene Curtsinger, Patrick Kirk, Betty Brusher, and Jack Cole (soloists).

Magdalena was revived in concert form under conductor Evans Haile on November 24, 1987, at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center; a recording with a slightly different cast was made in RCA's studios in 1988 and issued by CBS (later Sony) in 1989 (ASIN: B0000026QF).

More recently the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris announced a production to open in May 2010, with Kate Whoriskey directing and Warren Adams supplying choreography.

John Chapman in the New York Daily News, while dismissing the book as "secondary," called the play "a bold and stunning departure in the musical theater ... a flaming, opulent, disturbing and imaginative work which does not fit into any of the standard patterns."