Bruce Paul Hopkins, a director and a cabaret performer—well-known in the cabaret community—was perhaps most well-known as a star of the bewigged and 
bejeweled all male opera troupe La Gran Scena Opera Company. He was also known in New York City’s LGBTQ+ circles as a “funny guy” as well as a terrific MC. Born in Dallas, Pa. in 1948, he was a 1970 graduate from Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania. Hopkins died in the then Roosevelt Hospital in May 1992 from complications of diabetes at age 44.
Hopkins made his New York stage debut in 1971 in Al Carmines’s Christmas Rappings, the first of three Carmines shows over the next three years. In 1976 he made his solo cabaret debut at the Duplex and subsequently began directing cabaret performers including Julie Kurnitz, Margaret Wright, Semina de Laurentis, Ira Siff, Celeste, Nancy La Mott 
and Lina Koutrakos. As a cabaret performer in the 1980s, he created two solo performance pieces, Conversations at Our Lady of the Harbor Bar and Grill and Escape From New York, in which he played multiple characters. Both shows toured Europe. As a performer, writer and director in cabaret, Hopkins won five MAC Awards. He also directed the 1986 Off Broadway show Have I Got a Girl For You? (The Frankenstein Musical). During much of the 1980’s, he also worked as a booking manager for the Duplex and Don’t Tell Mama and also formed a vocal group, Get Out of My House, which specialized in pop songs of the 20s, 30s and 40s.
In 1981, Ira Siff conceived and formed the Gran Scena troupe, becoming its artistic director. Soon after, Hopkins joined as its narrator and created the comic role of Sylvia Bills, “America’s most 
beloved retired diva.” The troupe hilariously desecrated the classic operatic repertory—I Puritani, L’Italiana in Algeri, Madama Butterfly, Lakme, Cavalleria Rusticana— with a cast of Mme. Vera Galupe-Borszkh (Ira Siff), Philene Wannelle (Phil Koch), Dame Emily Post-Morddum (Charles Walker), Alfredo Sorta-Pudgi (Walker) and the maestro-pianist Francesco Folinari-Soave-Coglioni (Ross Barentyne), in campy performances of good fun.
There’s no telling how Bruce Hopkins’ career would have played out had he not died so young, but there are recordings that allow us a window into his unique talent.
