Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman.
[2] Borrowing from both opera and Broadway styles, in a manner similar to Leonard Bernstein in Trouble in Tahiti and Virgil Thomson in Four Saints in Three Acts, Regina has been said to straddle the line between entertainment and so-called serious music.
Before the premiere, producer Cheryl Crawford insisted on still further cuts to the opera, asking Blitzstein to reduce the work from three acts to two.
[4] Leonard Bernstein described Regina's relationship to The Little Foxes as "coating the wormwood with sugar, and scenting with magnolia blossoms the cursed house".
[5] Regina premiered on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre in New York on October 31, 1949, conducted by Maurice Abravanel and directed by Bobby Lewis with choreography by Anna Sokolow.
The 1958 version completely eliminated the onstage Dixieland band that had been an essential part of Blitzstein's plan for the work.
The first major revival of Regina since the 1958 production was in 1977 in Detroit by the Michigan Opera Theatre with John Yaffé as conductor, directed by Frank Rizzo, design by Franco Colavecchia, choreographed by Grethe Barrett Holby.
Setting: the Deep South in the year 1900 Regina Giddens schemes with her brothers Ben and Oscar for money and power.