Matthew Lord

A Streetcar Named Desire - The San Francisco Opera World Premiere

Kirk Browning

Renée Fleming, Elizabeth Futral

Recorded live with the San Francisco Opera, the world premiere production of Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire. For his first-ever opera, Previn turned to one of the most celebrated plays in the history of American theater, Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning A Streetcar Named Desire. He saw the haunting story of lost youth and innocence in the romantic, shadowy world of New Orleans as ideal material. Collaborating with librettist Philip Littell, Previn has captured all the claustrophobic tension, volatile emotion and sexual undertow of Williams' original in his own Streetcar. This world premiere recording took place in September 1998 at the spectacularly renovated War Memorial Opera House, with Previn conducting.