Press Room

30 Years of Acclaim for Pocket Opera:

“Pippin is to opera what Mark Twain was to American Literature, a breath of fresh air and a national treasure.”
- Sacramento Bee

“San Francisco's Wizard of Wit ... Lerner had Lowe, Gilbert had Sullivan, Rodgers had Hammerstein, and Offenbach has Pippin. Eat your hearts out, big guys.”
- San Francisco Examiner

“Donald Pippin, an eccentric genius who, since the late sixties, has been turning out incredibly deft and witty English translations of operas by Donizetti, Mozart, Offenbach, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and a dozen other composers. ”                                                  
- San Diego Reader

“He’s got an opera in his pocket . . . and praises will be heaped on the wry, tireless Pippin, whose genius for staging operas without pretension, yet preserving the marriage of words and music, is legendary”
- San Francisco Chronicle

“What makes Pippin’s operas work is his own brilliant English translations, which are often ingenious improvements on the originals
- East Bay Express

“There ought to be a law. All opera in English should be performed in Donald Pippin's translation. No, check that: "English setting." That's what Pippin calls his sparkling, intelligent, authentic but not mechanical and always eminently singable translations.”

- San Francisco Classical Voice

“Donald Pippin’s Pocket Opera is in a class by itself. When Pocket Opera performs in S.F., carpools start forming in the Easy Bay, and loyal fans from the city often show up when the company plays in Berkeley                
- Contra Costa Sun

“Pocket Opera opens up the forbidding world of opera to newcomers.”                                         
- San Francisco Magazine

“Pippin is a superb, spontaneous, and often innocent wit who can turn a phrase and enliven a melody like few other men (or women) in show business today.”   
- San Francisco Examiner

“Pocket Opera is opera stripped down to its basics: no sets, no costumes and a minimal orchestra. What’s left is the music and the words. It works because the music is beautiful, the young singers and instrumentalists are talented and disciplined and Pippin’s commentary and English libretto are droll but to the point.”
- Contra Costa Times

“Producing operas on a shoestring as he does, Pippin cannot give them an opera-house quality look but he can make them feel like it by his attention to musical and dramatic nuances. His job is doubly difficult because he must create an illusion of an illusion, but he pulled it off quite handsomely.”
- San Francisco Examiner

“It is a pretty sure bet that wherever Donald Pippin books a comic work for his Pocket Opera, there will be mirth, merriment and madness.”
- Peninsula Times-Tribune

“Pippin’s specialty is making opera audience-friendly by removing the starch and stuffiness that often cling to it, at the same time treating the music with loving respect.”
- Contra Costa Sun

Best of the Bay 2006 BEST PINT-SIZE BARCAROLLE

“Sometimes, sitting in the nosebleed section of the War Memorial Opera House, binoculars raised to our eyeballs as we strain desperately to make out the action unfolding on the stage far, far below us, we think wistfully that there must be another way. Then we remember that there is: Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera. The Pocket, a San Francisco institution since 1978, offers chamber-style performances of classic libretti, from Der Freischütz to The Magic Flute, at a fraction of the size, and ticket price, of big-house opera. Meticulously translated into English by Pippin, who often also narrates, each production exemplifies the aesthetic that art is for everyone, not just those who can afford it (or those with a degree in music appreciation, for that matter). Accessible yet accomplished, Pocket Opera admirably demonstrates that sacrificing company quantity does not necessarily mean sacrificing quality. Best of all, you get to leave the binoculars at home.”
- San Francisco Bay Guardian