Praise for David Scott Marley

"Marley has become a favorite of audiences in Berkeley and beyond" — Cheryl North, Oakland Tribune, 6 July 2006

"Marley is the dexterous wordsmith who last year recast Rossini's 'Italian Girl in Algiers' as a hilarious — and splendidly faithful — sci-fi comic called 'The Riot Grrrl on Mars,' and also has reworked operas by Berlioz and Johann Strauss Jr." — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 July 1998

Opera and operetta adaptations

Beatrice and Benedick (1995)

  • Music by Hector Berlioz from his opera Béatrice et Bénedict, with additional music from his opera Benvenuto Cellini
  • Adapted from the libretto by Hector Berlioz and the play Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
  • Berlioz's wittiest music was written for Shakespeare's wittiest comedy. His rarely performed opera has a sparkling score but a weak libretto. This adaptation strengthens the dramatic structure and restores significant parts of the story of Much Ado that Berlioz left out.

Bat out of Hell (1996)

  • Music by Johann Strauss, Jr., from his operetta Die Fledermaus
  • Adapted from the libretto by Carl Haffner and Richard Genée
  • A successful dot-com marketing executive, a flaky street poet, and the woman who can't choose between them become entangled in a practical joke that spins out of control. Also involved are a Mexican housemaid posing as an Italian film star, a politically subversive jail warden, and a bratty teenage software billionaire. As Die Fledermaus mocked the foibles of Viennese society in the 1870s, Bat out of Hell pokes fun at life in Berkeley at the height of the dotcom boom.

From the reviews
"Fresh, funny and pointedly satiric .... Mr. Marley's work is that rara avis, an updating that fits the original material perfectly, works on multiple levels, and translates the essential vitality of the model to a new audience." — Michael Zweibach, San Francisco Classical Voice, 16 July 2004

The Riot Grrrl on Mars (1997)

  • Music by Gioachino Rossini from his opera L'Italiana in Algeri
  • Adapted from the libretto by Angelo Anelli
  • A riot grrrl — a feisty female punk rocker — flies to Mars in a spaceship made from used car parts, determined to rescue her boyfriend who has been abducted by a UFO. But to free him, she must outwit the tyrannical King of Mars, who craves an Earthling female of his own — just like the wives he's seen on Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best. The 18th-century commedia dell'arte farce is retold in sci-fi comic book style.

Daughter of the Cabinet (1998)

  • Music by Charles LeCoq from his operetta La Fille de Madame Angot
  • The queen of Washington society is "Madame Georgetown" herself, the crass but insanely wealthy political benefactor Fanny Cobbler. Fanny hopes to marry off her carefully sheltered 18-year-old daughter to the president's wonkish media consultant. But naive Claretta yearns to escape her mother's control. On a rebellious impulse, she flirts at a party with a charming philanderer -- who is also Washington's most notorious political satirist -- and accidentally sets off a White House sex scandal that could topple the new administration. A bawdy musical satire on sex, Hollywood, the media, morality, American politics, and overprotective motherhood.

From the reviews
"Marley spins out voluminous stretches of sharp, cleverly rhymed lyrics -- from a wonderfully lewd song in the tradition of 'Handy Man Blues' to a comic chorus of Secret Service agents -- and he's funny on the intersection between sex and politics (even working a suave double entendre on the phrase 'act of congress')." — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 July 1998

The Tales of Hoffmann (1999)

  • Music by Jacques Offenbach from his opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann
  • Adapted from the libretto by xxx
  • xxx

Carmen (2001)

  • Music by Georges Bizet from his opera Carmen
  • Adapted from the libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy and the novella by Prosper Mérimeée
  • xxx

From the reviews
... a passionate attempt to bring the story alive in way that was never possible in Bizet's lifetime. ... Marley brings us Carmen and Don José as Bizet might have intended — two troubled people with complex pasts — rather than the less interesting but now comfortably familiar characters we know from the Grand Opera version that was made after Bizet's death. Marley's translation of the original French libretto puts more of Mérimée's detached yet dark tone back into the words. — John Kendall Bailey, San Francisco Classical Voice, 13 July 2001

The Girl of the Golden West (2006)

  • Music by Giacomo Puccini from his opera La Fanciulla del West
  • Adapted from the play and novel by David Belasco and the libretto by xxx
  • xxx

From the reviews
"The Berkeley Opera's wonderful new version at the Julia Morgan Theatre returns the piece to its American roots, with a canny new English libretto by David Scott Marley that draws on both the opera and the David Belasco play that was its source. ... The result is a true operatic Western .... [Marley] keeps the language fluent and distinctly American ...." — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 July 2006

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