Houdini A Circus Opera -- August 1979

Description

Available for Sale: Houdini A Circus Opera -- August 1979 Autographed Libretto and Flyers
Libretto Autographed by the producer Peter Schat, director Ian Strasfogel, conductor Richard Dufallo and magician Mark Mazzarella.
This lot consists of the libretto and six newsprint flyers.
In August 1979 Houdini, A Circus Opera traveled to the U.S. where it played as a special feature at the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The show was ideally suited to the venue, as the stage for the Aspen festival was inside a giant circus tent.
For this U.S. production, Daniel Lordon took over as the dancing Houdini while Mark Mazzarella took over the escape artist role from Howard Peters. Mazzarella was only nineteen at the time and had dropped out of the University of Hartford to star in the show. He touted himself as the youngest magician to ever escape from Houdini's Water Torture Cell. Walter B. Gibson was brought on to work with Mazzarella, and Sidney Radner loaned several authentic Houdini escape props to the production.
During the first performance, a power outage occurred during the finale in which Bess (played by Vivian Thomas in the U.S. production) tries to contact Houdini. Time magazine quipped that it caused a "brief, wild surmise that Bess had succeeded." The show had to be concluded via the headlights of an automobile that was hurriedly moved to the rear of the tent. Audience members also helped out with flashlights that they aimed at the stage. The New York Times noted, "It was not a planned effect, but it added to the fun."
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