The Leonard Bernstein Letters (38 page)

Dear Carlos,

This Prague thing is very exciting indeed: and if I guess correctly, my profound gratitude is due one Moseley.

The programs have been tentatively settled, & cabled to Prague, as follows:

I.

Schuman – Am. Fest. Overture

Harris – Symph. #3

Gershwin – Rhapsody (Eugene List)

——

Me – Jeremiah Symph.

II.

Randall Thompson – Symph. #2

——

pseudo-Czech group:

Dvořák – Husitska Overture

Bartók – Rhapsody #1, Portrait in D – Szigeti

——

Barber – Essay #1

Copland – El Saloon

I think they're swell programs, and I hope you agree. Will we see each other soon?

When do I go in order to rehearse sufficiently?

Are new injections required?

Do send me details.

Affectionately,

Lenny Bernstein

Dear Mr. Bernstein,

As you know the business of
On The Town
on the road has been very disappointing everywhere in spite of the terrific notices. Up to date we have personally lost over $50,000.00, in getting the show ready for the road and the losses on the road. The first week in Chicago the loss was $6,500.00, and then last week we lost $1,600.00, and that was due to the fact that we did not charge off any but cash bills.

We must appeal to you for help. Full royalties have been paid with the exception of the last few weeks in New York. We ask that royalties be waived retroactive to the opening of the run in Chicago and until such time as we start again operating at a profit and royalties should be paid out of each week's profit up until such payments equal 80% of the royalties due.

Unless we can secure urgent and immediate cooperation from all persons receiving royalties we will be forced to close the run in Chicago immediately, regardless of the fact that business is on the upswing there.

A copy of this has been sent to each person receiving royalties. Please sign the enclosed letter under “agreed to” and return it to me as soon as possible.

Very truly yours,

Paul Feigay

Dearest Dave (Dearer than Crockett, Diamond, Jones, the King, Glazer),
⁴⁸

At this very moment life is a horror. I developed a stiff neck and a stinking cold during my first day in Paris. It would have disappeared, but there's no rest. One spends most of one's days in ATC offices, bureaus, Embassies, and most of
one's nights driving to and from the airports. The flying racket is grand, but always involves the wrong times of day.

All this notwithstanding, the city is so fantastically beautiful that one cannot but be excited. The French are very depressed, and as they say here, on vive très mal. But my flight to Prague has just been called – so bless you & all my love,

L

Dear Helen,

Things are beginning to pick up. Thank God! So far all the wonderful things Europe holds have offered themselves to me as dim visions, due to the fact that I caught a monstrous cold in Paris on my very first day there, and it's still with me. I've had horrible stiff muscles and aches, and sinus blowups. But now it begins to abate, and I'm beginning to be able to receive all this fabulous wonder.

This is the greatest day in Czech history. As you remember one year ago on May 5th, with Patton's army 20 miles away and the Russians at the East door, the people of Prague made a revolution against the Nazis. They just couldn't wait. The next day they were liberated by the Red Army. So this whole week is festival – the first anniversary of liberty. And are they celebrating, as no American would ever dare to do. Outside in the streets the whole town is dancing – to miked-up records of boogie-woogie and Strauss waltzes! People have come from all the provinces – Moravia, Slovakia – in their heavenly national peasant costumes, and the gaiety is beyond description. This morning there was a great parade and celebration in the huge Masaryk stadium, where generals of all the Allies spoke, including the great Konev, McNarney, and chiefs of staff from France, England, Yugoslavia, etc. It was a super-colossal demonstration, with tanks, planes, and the works. Last night there were fireworks on the Moldau, and up in the great Hradčany Castle. It is the only place on earth to be this week.

Of course, the people look on the Russians as their liberators, but all the Hearst talk of the Red Terror here and the iron grip of Russia is nonsense.
⁴⁹
The Czechs
are free as much as men can be, with joy in their reconstruction. It is rather in Paris where the spirit is way down, where the elections bore no fruit, where everyone is pessimistic and wretched (I think probably as much from guilt at their self-defeat as from
la vie dure
). The Czechs are happy and look to the future. They are the sweetest people on earth, and I'm going to have a marvelous week.

My love goes to everyone – please give it to them, and let this letter go to them all. There's so little time to write. More later.

Love,

L

Darling,

It's all a mess. I didn't want to go to England. The plane trip was ghastly and a full day overdue, always stopping to fix the foolish crate. The hotel is dreary beyond description. The food is inedible, what there is of it. The English are very down, except for Victory Day (yesterday) when 10,000,000 people went berserk in London. In an ogrish way. (Why do I always hit the parades?)

And worst of all, I'm stuck with horrible programs. I can't fix them – it's too late. All Ford-Hour stuff, masses of Wagner excerpts, with and without Marjorie Lawrence, and waltzes & polonaises by the score. The one help is
Appalachian Spring
. What a dream of a piece.

I have rarely felt so lonely. I don't really know why, but I react to everything with big, soggy depressions. And H[elen] C[oates] is no help there. How I regret not bringing you instead.

Are you a stage-manager yet? What is the state of your maidenhood? A letter from you would help a lot. Soon, please.

First rehearsal tomorrow morning. First concert the day after. (
Jeremiah
, of course, is out.) If I hold up through this I'll be extremely grateful. My love to all around. And many kisses to you. I miss you terribly.

L

Don't forget to phone my best to the family.

To the Royal Husbandman,

Builder of the House,

Decorator of the interior,

Defender of the Faith:

GREETING.

This is the dullest yet. Of course, I hit Victory Day again, with parades, illuminations (fireworks to us), and 10,000,000 mad folk releasing their repressions in a “frightfully gay” holiday. Now it's over, and it's still dull. Crowds hanging around Buckingham Palace, waiting for Royalty to appear. The sun came out for twenty minutes today, and everyone is grateful.

I'm not happy. The programs are a mess, and there's nothing I can do to change them. I'm tired, usually depressed, and have little if any clarity of mind. I sleep when I have nothing pressing, and try to ignore the dreariness of this hotel and all of London.

I envy you in the excitement of building up your new home. Let me hear about it. This was the time you
were
going to write, remember?

All my love,

Lenny

Lenushka,

This is the time I
did
write. Remember!

The news here is good. We have had much success in your absence. Felicia [Montealegre] has a lead role in
Swan Song
, the Ben Hecht–C. MacArthur affair and seems to be doing well in it considering she's a nervophysical wreck and can't swallow food any more, what with 3 days notice on her role. But H[elen] Hayes came up to her dressing room to tell her how much she liked her (I was there) and how much she liked her clothes – so I guess she will live on that for a while. I didn't even know it was Hayes until she had gone. She calls herself Mrs. MacArthur.
⁵⁰
Who am I to know? She's not a girl any more.

As for your favorite schizophrenic (looks wrong) he has played for Laszlo H[alasz]
⁵¹
& will continue to do so for the duration of next season. I signed something or other Monday. You must have primed Fallioni like crazy. He welcomed me into his office like a lost brother–old sweetheart combined – gave
me the parts to about seven operas – told me to call him “when ready & if I needed advice.”

At the audition I played
Carmen
&
Traviata
&
Butterfly
. I wasn't great – but I was OK, I guess. After I had played the
Traviata
solo (which I loathe) Laszlo said there was no question about my tone now for some notes. Then the beginning and about 3 pages of Butterballs
⁵²
& I'm sticking to him like glue thru a million Puccini rubatos.

He then conceded that I had “mastered the instrument. Have you the courage to play 1st?” To which I replied modestly – with much Frauentruth – that I didn't have the courage to play anything else. So he said to Fallioni – “Good boy” – & that's it.

Fallioni says over again “I think this will make Lenny very happy, eh.”

The house I live in now, not mine to own. We accept each other, with all our faults.

I have made a down payment of $5.00 on a small 5′6” porcelain bathtub which when I raise the sufficient capital – $13.00 – I will install in my bathroom.

Cheer up friend Lenny. Soon you will be back with those who love you and in the […] Berkshires. Not long from now. We miss you and I miss you.

Love,

Dave

Best to Helen

Darling,

Your letter came this morning “bringing hope & cheer.” As a matter of fact, I've been feeling infinitely better since writing you last, when skies were really greymalkin. I had my
Lōondonshein
début yesterday, and apparently it was a huge success, though the
Times
critic is still back in 1905, worrying about the question of a baton or no baton. Incredible country. The state of music is a shambles, the programs are embarrassing, the standard of performance abysmal.

I am constantly saying, if you were only here! What fun all this nonsense would be! I saw
three
shambles in a row that would have thrown you. First, a concert conducted by a wildman named de Sabata, who makes Mitrop[oulos] look like a sissy. He beats his head and jumps in the air & the bloody British public screams in delight. Then, the theatre:
The First Gentleman
with wonderful
Robert Morley & heavenly Wendy Hiller, but a play to make one wince (long scenes of dying in childbirth), and the British public screams. Then, the ballet. That was the end. Three ballets in a row at Covent Garden, one more lamentable than the last. And corn! And no imagination, and the audience screamed. So much for the British public.

Peter Lawrence is here, to be followed by the whole crowd. Wait til Nora Kaye gets brought here by two liveried footmen! That will be the take [talk] of the season.

God, I should have brought you. I miss you […] and love you so much. But, as you say, you're here with me, and people often catch me giggling to myself, when I am making Rybernian conversation with you on the latest British idiocy.

[…]

All my love – be well – and somehow that Schirmer deal smells bad. I hope it all works out.

If Kouss lets me, I may stay on here till July 4th to conduct opening night
Fancy Free
at Covent Garden. I'll let you know.

Bless you,

L

Dearest Serge Alexandrovich,

I have wanted to write you every day since your generous permission to stay an extra week in England arrived by cable – but I have not been able because I
could
not decide to stay and give up even one week of Tanglewood. You know so well what that paradise means to me – there are only six weeks in all, and every one is so important. Besides, I did not want to upset your plans if anything depended on me in the first week. But two things have finally made me take the decision to stay. First, I have had a serious throat infection this week, and had to cancel one concert (Leinsdorf substituted for me!) – and I need a week's rest in the countryside to get strong and well again for the great work this summer.

The second reason is that I am to make records here on July 1st,
⁵³
and since that is so important, I suppose I must remain, and then conduct my ballet on the 4th. But I promise, when I return I will feel healthier, and be able to work harder; and I
will
take the
first
plane after July 4th!

My concerts are all over here, and they have been very successful, although the programs could not be materially altered. For example, last night was my
final concert, in sold-out Albert Hall (over 5,000 people in the audience) – but the program! Handel's
Water Music
, Grieg's Piano Concerto (with a bad pianist named Eileen Joyce) and Tchaikovsky's Fifth. At least I had a chance to play a major symphony, and it was a great experience to play the Fifth for the first time. Some people in the audience came back and told me that it was better than
Nikisch!
(That, of course, meant it was in the Koussevitzky tradition, but not so good.) Isn't it strange how in this small world all the lines of history and destiny come around eventually in perfect circles? I think that gives me more hope than anything else.

Appalachian Spring
has had a great success here. I have played it also in the provinces, where they love it, almost more than in London! But the greatest joke is that the
Times
called me [a] “real Wagnerian conductor” after my
Tristan
and
Götterdämmerung
with Marjorie Lawrence! I had never done
Götterdämmerung
before, and my whole Wagner repertoire has been almost nothing! So much for the critics.

My greatest love to you, and all my blessings for the greatest Tanglewood season so far, and for many, many more. I cannot wait until I join you there.

Devotedly,

Leonard

Kisses for Olga