Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (127 page)

75
. Like the “There’s a place” motive, the third “Somewhere” motive (Example 13.4
c
) appears ubiquitously in the “Cool” fugue. It is most conspicuous, however, in earlier portions of the Dream Sequence where an ascending half step—again as in Maria’s name—appears in the orchestral underpinning of Under Dialogue (13) and Ballet Sequence (13a). The third “Somewhere” motive will again figure prominently in the “Finale” (17) directly after Tony’s death as an inner melodic strand throughout the procession and in the three final statements that parallel the finale of the Dream Ballet as the last notes we hear. It also appears conspicuously but with less apparent dramatic justification throughout much of “America” (7).

76
. Larry Stempel notes that the music of “I Have a Love” is a transformed version of Anita’s music in the preceding “A Boy Like That,” for example, on the words, “A boy who kills cannot love, / A boy who kills has no heart.” Stempel, “Broadway’s Mozartean Moment,” 50.

77
. Among
West Side Story
chroniclers, only Banfield notes a possible Wagnerian reference when he writes that “one even senses a hint of
Tristan
in Tony’s supplication for ‘endless night.’” Banfield,
Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals
, 34. Peyser, in noting the influence of Wagner in Bernstein’s final opera,
A Quiet Place
(1983), concludes that Wagner was “an influence that had been nowhere apparent in Bernstein up to the late 1970s.” Peyser,
Leonard Bernstein
, 457.

78
. Gottlieb, “The Music of Leonard Bernstein,” 26–32; Gradenwitz,
Leonard Bernstein
, 185–202; Stempel, “Broadway’s Mozartean Moment,” 39–56; and Swain,
The Broadway Musical
, 205–46. Gottlieb, a composer who acted as Bernstein’s musical assistant and general factotum at the New York Philharmonic from 1958–1966, wrote articulate jacket notes for Bernstein’s recordings and served as an editor of the composer’s writings, including the Omnibus
television lectures of the 1950s. Gradenwitz, a German musicologist who remained a personal friend of the composer, also wrote notes for Bernstein recordings. For studies that appeared since the first edition of
Enchanted Evenings
see Gottlieb,
Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish
on Bernstein’s use of the Shofar call (179–80) and Raymond Knapp,
The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity
for the plausible observation that the Maria or love transformation of the hate motive may be derived from the opening of the love theme from Tchaikovsky’s Overture to
Romeo and Juliet
(212).

79
. In the underrated
Wonderful Town
(1953), perfect fifths also figure prominently in abbreviated thematic reminiscences that contribute to an “organic” musical unity, although these musical connections do not reinforce dramatic nuances as they will in
West Side Story
. Several melodies that emphasize perfect fifths reappear in other songs as well: the main tune of “A Little Bit in Love” serves as an introduction to “It’s Love” and the main tune of “It’s Love” forms the introduction to “A Quiet Girl.” A second type of connection is thematic reminiscence, as, for example, when the first measure of “Pass That Football”—most of the tune is musically and dramatically identical to “What a Waste”—returns in the first two measures of “A Quiet Girl.” A third unifying element derives from the reuse of the dotted boogie-woogie accompaniments originally associated with the sisters Ruth and Eileen in “Ohio,” Ruth in “One Hundred Easy Ways,” and Eileen in “A Little Bit in Love,” and distorted in Wreck’s “Pass That Football,” Ruth’s “Swing!,” and the sisters’ “Wrong Note Rag.”

80
. The instrumental “Paris Waltz Scene” and its rhythmic transformation in the finale “Make Our Garden Grow” of
Candide
bears a strong resolution to the first “Somewhere” motive. In both, the upward leap of a minor seventh is followed by descending half step (minor second). In the
Candide
finale, as in “Somewhere,” Bernstein starts in E major and modulates to C (although
Candide
parts company with “Somewhere” with its intervening modulation to A
major and in its avoidance of a return to E). The overlapping compositional histories of
Candide
and
West Side Story
produced additional musical affinities that go beyond the exchanges among their songs discussed earlier in this chapter.

81
. Gottlieb, “The Music of Leonard Bernstein,” 26.

82
. Bernstein’s manuscript for the Prologue opens with the “hate” motive (A
-D
-G), bracketed and labeled “optional curtain music.” The Broadway cast album retains this introduction, and in the film version, the “hate” motive is used effectively at the outset and at other strategic moments as the Jet’s warning whistle. The “hate” motive also appears unaltered in the “Cool” fugue where it joins the first and third “Somewhere” motives.

83
. In the album jacket notes of the soundtrack, Hollis Alpert makes the following point: “With the intermissions between acts eliminated, one rising line of tension, from beginning to end, was required. The neatest solution, resulting in almost no change in the text, was the juxtaposition of musical numbers” (Columbia OS 2070). Thus, in dramatic contrast to most movie versions of hit Broadway shows, the makers of the
West Side Story
film made a valiant attempt to retain all of the music and to preserve the dramatic integrity, if not the ordering, of the Broadway original. Ironically, when
West Side Story
was first released, theaters, deprived of a B-movie second feature due to the length of the main event, thwarted the intentions of the film’s creators by inserting an intermission as a concession to the concessionaires. Following the numbers in the vocal score and the online website, the order in the film version is as follows: Nos. 1–5, 7–6, 14, 12, 9–11, 13, 8, and 15–17.

84
. The final measures of Bernstein’s musical bears a striking—and identically pitched—resemblance to the apotheosis of the central character on the final notes of Stravinsky’s
Petrushka
(1911).

85
. The CD reissued in 1992 restores the Broadway ending in the previously unreleased “Finale” (Sony SK 48211).

86
. In the reissued CD, the previously released End Credits restored the three tritones that accompanied the film.

87
. Swain,
The Broadway Musical
, 243. See also Stempel, “Broadway’s Mozartean Moment,” 54.

Chapter 14: Stage vs. Screen (2) After
Oklahoma!

1
. Among her many roles Moreno played the waitress in “It’s an Art” from the 1982 American Playhouse broadcast of
Working
in 1982 and dubbed the voice of Carmen Sandiego in the television series
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

2
. Gerald Mast,
Can’t Help Singin,’
217 and 216.

3
. Thomas S. Hischak,
Through the Screen Door
, 153–54.

4
. Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans,
Blue Skies and Silver Linings
, 187–204 (quotations on 197 and 204).

5
. One interesting addition is when Billy’s responds to Mrs. Mullin’s accusation that his attentions to Julie have spoiled the good name of her carousel by accusing Mrs. Mullin herself of giving the enterprise a bad name the day she acquired it. For ’50s audiences who may not know what a chippie is, the word is replaced by its modern equivalent, slut.

6
. See chapter 9 for a discussion of the Julie and Carrie Sequence and the Bench Scene.

7
. Like many recordings of popular songs of the era, the “June” chorus is heard before its verse.

8
. Mast,
Can’t Help Singin,’
217.

9
. “Hugh Jackman Updates
Carousel
Remake,” November 13, 2006,
www.firstshowing.net/2006/11/13/hugh-jackman-updates-carousel-remake/
.

10
. Porter himself did to Shakespeare what new lyric writers frequently did to Porter throughout the film when he changed Shakespeare’s “Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot / And place your hands below your husband’s foot” to “So wife, hold your temper and meekly put / Your hand ‘neath the sole of your husband’s foot” in Porter.

11
. A. Scott Berg,
Goldwyn
, 470.

12
. Ibid., 470.

13
. Even before the age of twenty Simmons gained exposure in the role of Estella in
Great Expectations
(1946) and Ophelia in Laurence Olivier’s
Hamlet
(1948). In the years before
Guys and Dolls
she had leading roles in
Androcles and the Lion
and
The Robe
in 1953 and played opposite Brando’s Napoleon in
Desiree
in 1954. After
Guys and Dolls
, her major film role was probably that of Sister Falconer in
Elmer Gantry
(1960).

14
. Steve Sondheim, “‘Guys and Dolls,’” 524–25.

15
. Ibid., 525.

16
. In the years between the stage and film versions of
My Fair Lady
, Beaton had designed the costumes and sets for Lerner and Loewe’s Academy Award–winning film
Gigi
(1958).

17
. Mast,
Can’t Help Singin,’
289.

18
. Cast aside as the film Eliza, Andrews accepted the consolation prize role of Mary Poppins and earned eternal vindication when she took home the Best Actress Oscar and Hepburn was not even nominated. The next year Andrews starred in the popular and acclaimed film musical,
The Sound of Music
.

19
. Lerner,
On the Street Where I Live
, 171.

20
. Ibid.

21
. “Keira Knightley is
My Fair Lady
,” June 6, 2008,
www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45737
.

22
. With the exception of the winning costume designer and the quartet of orchestrators, most of the hardworking craftspeople honored are unknown other than to insiders in the field. This footnote will honor their substantial contributions to this technically brilliant film: Art Direction (Victor A. Gangelin); Cinematography (Daniel L. Fapp); Costumes (Irene Sharaff); Film Editing (Thomas Stanford); Scoring (Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin, and Irwin Kostal); and Sound Mixing (Gordon E. Sawyer and Fred Hynes).