The Leonard Bernstein Letters (58 page)

Dear Lenny,

I am
overjoyed
at the idea that you will conduct
David
at the Scala
⁸⁵
– Ghiringhelli
⁸⁶
hopes very much you can stay until January 13th and from Dec 1st. I will certainly fly to Milano!!

As for the orchestra score that you asked now I really think the
best
would be to have one done at the Library of Congress Kouss Foundation as it costs only 5 cents a page. The orchestra score would not be more than 45 dollars I think and you would have your own score that you could keep.

May be the foundation would be willing to pay for it, otherwise I will be delighted to give it to you as a present and as a proof of my great admiration. Just let me know. The piano score will be soon ready in printing.

Very affectionately,

Milhaud

I
missed
you in Jerusalem. Everything was OK (orchestra, choir, soloist) but George Singer
⁸⁷
was
horrible
, hysteric and
can't hold a tempo
.
⁸⁸

Dear Frankie and Bill,

Your joint letter gave me much food for thought (and sickroom sympathy) – and, well, you talked yourselves right out of an Italian première.
⁸⁹
With regret I bowed to your dark warnings, after another look at the score (which I love); and you will be supplanted by the far simpler (and far less interesting) Piston's 4th. Now aren't you sorry to be such Cassandras?

I've finished my
Serenade
(blithely attributed to the authorship of William Schuman in a
Sunday Times
squib a few weeks ago) and it looks awfully pretty on paper, at least. The Italian critics will hate it; but I like it a lot.

The Charaks (?) tell me you are much better, & that they are building you a permanent Vineyard residence. You can't do better than this extraordinary, passionate island. We've loved it this summer. Shall we start making dinner plans
now
? I'll be back from Europe around the 17th.

Love to you all from us all, & be well.

Lenny.

Think of it: I was 36 last Wednesday. As a friend put it, 3 and 6 are 9, which is the cube [
recte
square] of 3; & 3 times 6 are 18, the digits of which add up to 9; and 3 from 6 leaves 3 which is the cube [
recte
square] root of 9. Which means in short, I'm getting old.

Dear Lenny,

Thanks very so much for your note with the terrible news that you have taken my advice and are not performing my 6th [Symphony] in Venice. You can appreciate that it was very difficult advice for me to have given but I feel that it would have been unfair of me to have been less than candid. Until you find an appropriate moment to program the Symphony, I will be nourished by your stated love of it which, as I think you know, means a great deal to me.

I also noticed in the
New York Times
that authorship of your
Serenade
for violin was credited to me. Am I to understand that you are now denying
that I wrote the piece and claiming it for yourself? Naturally, I assumed that you were giving me this work because I am sick and old and so disappointed that you could not perform the 6th. In fact, in my mind, it already took the place of the second favorite composition of my authorship, the first being “The Happy Farmer”, and now I am patiently awaiting the first royalty checks from my
Serenade
. Incidentally, if there is an extra copy around, please send it. I am dying to see it.

I am quite well aware that you are now 36 years of age because last Wednesday I tuned in the radio and heard my name followed by the piece of brilliant piano music which I recognized as your anniversary present to me of several years ago. The whole program was devoted to your music and I enjoyed it immensely, the clarinet piece and all (they played the movements out of order). One of these days you simply must take time off and write a great big opera. It is good to know that you will be back the 17th and we look forward to seeing you.

Love to your house from ours.

Bill

P.S. Dictated by phone and signed by Miss Martin so that you will get the note without delay.

Darling,

I just had a cable from George which said you were having a second hurricane – unbelievable! I tried to get through by phone, but no soap. He assured me everything was OK, but I can't help worrying about it. I'll try and call you from London Monday night. Be safe!

I've missed you terribly – you would love Venice: and it's been a charming week. Ciro [Cuomo] showed me a picture of you that he carries, & I nearly broke down. You're so lovely, & such a
terrific
actress (I just rediscovered this last week at Woodstock) and I love you more than I can tell you.

Isaac [Stern] plays the
Serenade
like an angel – and everyone adores it, Diamond included. If it goes well tomorrow it should be a knockout. The weather is hot & fine, & the Lido is a joy – though there's too little time to enjoy it. (Last night we rehearsed til 2 a.m.!)

I've bought you gorgeous things. I can't wait to show them to you. All my love and a fountain of kisses for Jamie. I pray you're all OK. Love to Allyn.

L

Dearest Lenny,

Lovely to have your letter.

I answer your questions:

1. Cuts.
Not one note
. I know it is a long opera.
But so it is
. 2 hours 50 – we must not lose a
second
between changing scenes.

2. George Singer.
David
is easy to prepare – choirs are easy to sing. Solo parts have no problem. They have in all Italian operas good people to rehearse with. Why take this terrible George Singer, who will prepare all wrong. We need a young conductor from the Scala who teaches choir and soloists notes, solfege, and articulation. Someone who makes
precise work
, and not this frightful hysteric lunatic.

Now if the Scala wanted him absolutely, and wanted to ruin the preparation, and that you will have to rebuild everything, then they should not have ask[ed] me first.

That is my sentiment from the bottom of my heart.

And I admire
you
and have a great affection for
you
.

Darius

Dearest Babs and Fil,

I've let you down terribly, I know, and I'm taking advantage of the fact that today is Thanksgiving, a season of joy and forgiveness and blessing-counting, to try to make reparation. Your nice Mrs. Gilbert phoned some weeks ago with your messages, and I was sorry she had no time to come and visit with us.

I'm taking this time out of the simple family joys (it seems the whole family is here, both sides) to send you our love and greetings. These last months have been overcast with relentlessly gloomy activity. How can activity be gloomy, you ask? It can. We have had big lyricist trouble in
Candide
, and have only now, this minute (two weeks ago, that is) made a final and utter break with Mr. LaTouche. At the point of the break the show was less than half-finished. So, here we are. It should have been finished by end of summer. Nothing wasted of course. I did get off a little 34-minute thing for violin and orch. called
Symposium
which Isaac Stern played like an angel with me at the Venice Festival in September. Didn't read about that in
Variety
, eh? Small wonder. Then, a long
stretch of trying to eke out
Candide
with Touche, and not getting much of anywhere. Then the last two weeks of searching desperately for a new lyricist, in vain. But other things interspersed: an article published in the
Atlantic Monthly
(cover piece too, imagine) – did you read it? And last week, no, two weeks, who knows – a TV stint on
Omnibus
that seems to have knocked the national press for a loop. Did you happen to catch it? If not, see last week's
Variety
. I count on that mag as our personal intermediator. Also this week's
Life
, a ghastly inadequate account of the proceedings, but still,
Life
Mag. I haven't appeared in that one since '48, when a glorious picture of me as one of America's 50 leading “Super-Dupes” graced their pages. Then black silence. So this must mean something, a toe in the door.

So then, good news. I have postponed my Scala trip to February instead of leaving Sunday (God!) when I was supposed to. I had royally screwed up my schedule for this season. But now things are straightening out. Lil[ian Hellman] and I have decided to do what I've been screaming for since the beginning: namely to write the lyrics
⁹⁰
ourselves. It's so natural and right: what were we futzing with Touche for all this time? So now I feel creative and set-up again, and ready for a two-month creative dash; and this time
Candide
will get finished by Feb. 1st, when I leave. I'll be in Milan for three solid months; then all of May in Florence, for that festival; then some concerts with the Israel Orch. in Italy; then the Holland festival in June; then Tanglesberg in July and August; then, Godwilling, the production of
Candide
. Then, maybe a vacation.

Item: among the greater things for which to give thanks on this Thanxgiving Day: we're going to have another baby! Next July. Which is also a problem, because it makes me have to think of cancelling the Holland thing in June, maybe. In any case, not a word: because Felicia won't get any jobs if it is known she is preggy. Isn't it wonderful?

Back now to the family joys. Jamie is beyond any description beautiful and wise: and Felicia is blooming all over in her joyful condition. Did you catch her last night on Kraft Cheese?
⁹¹
A bad adaptation of Jane Austen's
Emma
, but she was fabulous in the high comedy style.

There's the news up to this moment. Tune in again, etc. Do you get to New York this ensuing period? Let me hear from you, sooner than you heard from me.

Love from us both.

Lenny

Looking this over, I am struck by its hectic tone. Are you? But for a change, it's
nice
hectic.

Darling,

Imagine, I've been here three days and no sign of sinuses or bronchs or the trots or anything. And today, actually, the sun came out, and it was pure spring. It's a joy to be here: deep in rehearsals again – the cast in the afternoon, & the chorus in the morning, and conferences at night with Luchino [Visconti], who is marvelous to work with. I've gotten all steamed up about
Sonnambula
, as with
Medea
, getting wild ideas for cutting & staging and tempi. It's going to be a dream, I think. Luchino has planned a small production, perfect in every stylistic detail, just as I have planned a small orchestra, with emphasis on buoyancy & youth. I wish you could come in time to see it. We open the 19th, & the last one will be around the 25th. Callas is greater than ever. She has shrunk to a pinpoint, & is positively beautiful, even offstage. She has ash-blonde hair, and dresses much better – and sings like a doll. Last night I heard her as Maddalena in
Andrea Chenier
, and she was a divine coquette of 17 or so, completely believable! We had our first reading of
Sonnambula
today, & she made me cry.

I've hunted everywhere for an apartment, but they are all too expensive, or too crowded, or too something. And besides, an apartment is a bore to take care of, whereas at the Duomo I have everything at the touch of a button. So I have decided to stay here, especially since they came down to 5,000 lire a day for this old duplex of ours, which is already reasonable. It's just the same: the same brass bar loose on the stair rug, & hot as hell upstairs, cold downstairs, and all modernistic & hideous – but I've come to love it, & think of it as home, even. Once I unpack, & get a piano & chairs & table & cushions in, it will be OK, & just waiting for you.

I miss you my darling. Everyone asks for you (I saw the Ricordis tonight) & waits for you. Write me all about everything, right away. Isn't it glorious to be free of
Samarkand
?
⁹²
A big kiss to Jamie, and make her say
Daddy
at least once a day.

All my love,

L

My darling,

I miss you terribly, and love your letters. They carry a whiff of something warm and familiar and joyful. Imagine – after three years: joyful! Is it wonderful: home has always been the spot in which I happened to be: and now it is
a place
, with all that one place connotes. The dining-room one apologizes for, & my studio where you get blind with cigarette smoke; and the two “modern” chairs you hate in the library, and the marvelous sala, and the hall wallpaper you can't stand, and our country bedroom, and the loud canary, and Jamie spreading her presence like a marigold, and the difficulties below-stairs, and Bill with his weather, and all the problems and tensions and joy and noise and quiet. Home. A new experience.

Here all is up in the air. Callas is still abed with her farunculo, being a real old-fashioned prima donna, suffering, pale, Violetta. Of course we will have to postpone the prima of
Sonnambula
, which was scheduled for the 19th, to I don't know when: and it is a mess, with my having to go to London for the prima of
Wonderful Town
on the 23rd. Very complicated indeed. But pazienza: it will all work out. They love me at the Scala, & do everything to help. I've had some fine rehearsals already, & have fallen for the score, hook, line, etc. It never stales for some reason: fresh & noble & pure.

You won't believe it, but Charlie Roth
⁹³
just arrived, & I'll have to see him tomorrow. God, what a burden he is.

All the Ricordis are waiting for you to come, as is Wally, & Luchino (a doll), and Ghiringhelli & the works. It is fun here, really. You won't be bored. Wally is giving a Ballo in Maschera next Tuesday: that sort of thing. Ghiringhelli sent you a telegram of love on your birthday, & still awaits an answer, kind of hurt & pouting. Do send him one.

I visited the sartoria of the Scala the other day – an incredible experience. On the outskirts of Milan – a huge warehouse with 40,000 costumes, and thousands of new ones constantly being made, all by hand, & such materials & designs & care of work! (I'm going to have tails made for me there!) Ghiringhelli wants to sell about 10,000 of them, since the constant procession of new productions creates a surplus of costumes they cannot house. I promised him I would ask you if you would ask Eaves or Brooks
⁹⁴
if they'd be interested in buying such a number of really marvelous costumes. Do let me or him know.

What is this with
Bourgeois Gentilhomme
? What part? Who How What? It sounds glorious – tell me more. And of course, I want to hear all the news of the opening of
Samarkand
. There must be a lot to tell.

I'm so relieved you've been given the OK by all your MD's. I hope you're blossoming in spite of your kepepelt [cold]. You sounded so strange on the phone: remote & unexcited; and I couldn't decide if it was the kepep or 7:00 a.m. (which was ungodly, but I couldn't help it, as I'd been trying for days, & had to take the call when it got through) or just plain old
abstractness
. I'm planning something with an emerald when you get here (this
must
have something to do with the foregoing) – and Callas is going to wear moonstones in
Sonnambula
, imagine. I'm wandering.

I've never worked so close to a show: really into everything: painting the sets, & spending one hour arguing about the color of the cuff of a sleeve of one costume for one chorus-lady, and kind of co-directing with Luchino, & planning out every second. I'm learning, learning. It's a glorious theatre. Tonight is Nanni's birthday, so a party: & first I'm going with Wally & Luchino to a revue with an incredible sequin-blonde dame who calls herself Dorian Gray. I'm trying to get out of
Bohème
(which is an old production, & therefore a bore for me) & do instead
Traviata
with Callas & Luchino & a fabulous décor de Lila di Nobile (do you know of her?) – but [Victor] de Sabata is supposed to do it, but his heart is bad, & it's therefore indefinite, but how can one be sure, & as you see – it's all very complex.

I hope you can get here in time to see
Sonnambula
at least once: it will be a sweet production, slightly campy, with the stage apron advanced way out, so that Callas sings in the middle of Scala, & sings her last fabulous aria with all the houselights up, & flowers flying from the boxes and – you must see it.

My darling lady, I love you & miss you & wait for your letters with real impatience. Love to everyone, & a big hug & millions of kisses to you & Jamie & Fink.
⁹⁵

L