Corsaro, Frank (Anthony)
Corsaro, Frank (Anthony)
Corsaro, Frank (Anthony) , American theater, musical, and opera producer and administrator; b. N.Y., Dec. 22, 1924. He studied at City Coll. in N.Y., the Yale Univ. School of Drama (graduated, 1947), and the Actors’ Studio in N.Y. In 1952 he made his debut as a theater director, and from 1955 he was active on Broadway. In 1958 he made his debut as an opera producer with his staging of Floyd’s Susannah at the N.Y.C. Opera, where his subsequent productions included Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, Faust, Pelleas et Melisande, A Village Romeo and Juliet, The Cunning Little Vixen, and The Makropulos Affair. He staged the premieres of Floyd’s Of Mice and Men in Seattle (1970), Hoiby’s Summer and Smoke in St. Paul (1971), and Pasatieri’s The Seagull in Houston (1974). In 1977 he was named artistic director of the Actors’ Studio in N.Y. His production of Handel’s Rinaldo was seen at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. in 1984. In 1992 he oversaw the U.S. stage premiere of Busoni’s Doktor Faust at the N.Y.C. Opera. He staged Faust at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in 1996. Corsaro’s dramatically compelling opera productions have also been seen in Europe and Australia.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire