As Seen on TV: Putting the NBC Opera on Stage

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between opera on television and opera on the stage in America in the 1950s and 1960s. Using the NBC Opera (1949–64) as a case study, I trace both what television borrowed from the operatic stage and what television sought to bring to the stage in a relationship envisioned by producers as symbiotic. Focusing on the NBC's short-lived touring arm, which produced live performances of Madam Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro, and La traviata for communities across America in 1956–57, I draw upon archival evidence to show how these small-scale stage productions were recalibrated to suit a television-watching public. Instead of relying on the stylized presentation and grand gestures typical of major opera houses, the NBC touring performances blended intimate television aesthetics with Broadway typecasting and naturalistic direction. Looking beyond the NBC Opera, I also offer a new model for understanding multimedial transfer in opera, one in which the production style of early television opera did not simply respond to the exigencies of the screen, but rather sought to transform the stage into a more intimate—and supposedly more accessible—medium in the mid-twentieth century.