American children’s author Maurice Sendak died this morning in Danbury, Conn., aged 83, from complications following a stroke he suffered on Friday, according to longtime caretaker Lynn Caponera.
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He wrote 17 books and illustrated nearly 100, none more popular than Where the Wild Things Are, in 1963. It was made into a film in 2009, as well as into an opera.
Sendak had a huge interest in opera and ballet, providing direction and design for numerous production. This included helping Tony Kushner with a new production of Brundibar, a children’s opera written in a Nazi concentration camp.
Sendak’s partner of 50 years, Eugene Glynn, died in 2007. Sendak, who had his first heart attack at age 39, had a quadruple-bypass in 2008 and had slowed down markedly in recent years, but remained keenly interested in any project that involved his books.
A thorough obituary compendium on the Brooklyn native has just been published in The New York Times.
Here is a clip from an opera adaptation Sendak made of Where the Wild Things Are for Glyndebourne in 1984, with British composer Oliver Knussen, followed by a wonderful production of Sergei Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges that he conceived, also for Glyndebourne:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
