Arnold Weinstein (June 10, 1927 – September 4, 2005) was an American poet, playwright, and librettist, who referred to himself as a "theatre poet".[1]
Weinstein is best known for his collaborations with composer William Bolcom, including the operas McTeague, based on the novel by Frank Norris, A View from the Bridge based on the play by Arthur Miller, and A Wedding, based on the film by Robert Altman. Bolcom described his work with Weinstein as a "true collaboration", and said about him that "He had such a gift for writing words that were singable, and that gave character. He was more influential on a lot of other people than people have taken into account."[1]
With some frequency, Weinstein's work involved adapting the writing of others. He said in an interview in 1992 that "An adaptation gives you a funny kind of limitation that makes it easier to improvise." His early work with Paul Sills, founder of the Second City Theater in Chicago, helped hone those improvisational skills.[1]
Weinstein was associated with the '"New York School" of poets and painters in the 1950s and 1960s, during which time he developed close friendships with poet John Ashbery and painter Larry Rivers, among others. Weinstein would later collaborate with Rivers on What Did I Do? The Unauthorized Autobiography (1992).[1]
Weinstein's notable works include the long-running 1961 off-Broadway satire The Red Eye of Love, about an all-meat department store,[1] and an adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, originally present at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1969[3] and subsequently produced on Broadway in 1971.[4] With a new rock/blues score provided by his then-collaborator, composer Tony Greco,[5]Ovid's Metamorphoses debuted at Gian Carlo Menotti's Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi in 1973. Weinstein collaborated with Greco on four subsequent original theatrical works: The American Revolution, which premiered in 1973 at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., directed by Paul Sills; a musical of Weinstein's translation and adaptation of García Lorca's poetry titled Gypsy New York, presented at Cafe La Mama in 1974, produced by Gaby Rodgers, with art direction by Larry Rivers; Lady Liberty's Ice Cream Cone directed by Barbara Harris in 1974 at the New York Cultural Center; and the San Francisco A.C.T. production of America More Or Less, at the Marines Memorial Theatre in 1976.
Weinstein's operas with William Bolcom – McTeague (1992), A View from the Bridge (1999) and A Wedding (2004) – had their premieres at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. View was also presented by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 2002. The librettos for McTeague and A Wedding were collaborations with Robert Altman, who also directed the productions.[1][6] Weinstein also provided the libretto for Bolcom's Medusa: Monodrama for Dramatic Soprano and String Orchestra which was premiered by conductor Dennis Russell Davies leading the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in May 2003,[7] and the text for the composer's "music theater opera"[8]Casino Paradise, which was presented by American Music Theater Festival (AMTF) in Philadelphia in 1990, and, in a revamped version, by Lincoln Center's "American Songbook" series in 2005.[9] Weinstein's texts were also set to music by Bolcom as Cabaret Songs.[10]
Weinstein was married three times, each marriage ending in divorce, and he had a daughter, who is deceased. In 1997, he was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer, and received treatment from Dr. Emanuel Revici.[11] Weinstein, who was a decade-long resident of the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, died on September 4, 2005, at the age of 78, of liver cancer.[1]
