Florent Schmitt / The Happy Time

On this day in classical music: French composer Florent Schmitt was born in the Lorraine (northeastern France) in 1870. He studied with Faure and Massenet at the Paris Conservatory. Schmitt won the Prix de Rome in 1900. Schmitt is perhaps best remembered today for his 1907 ballet score “La tragédie de Salomé.” He subsequently created a symphonic poem using music from the ballet. The highly rhythmic work foreshadows Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” composed six years later. Listen to Yannick Nezet-Seguin conduct Quebec’s Orchestre Metropolitain in the “Danse de l’effroi” from “La tragédie de Salomé.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJGoKIwSzQo 

 

On this day in the musical theatre: Kander and Ebb’s “The Happy Time” closed on Broadway in 1968. The musical, which was based Samuel A. Taylor’s play of the same name, relates the story of Jacques Bonnard, a prize-winning photographer who travels the world. After an absence of five years, he returns to his Canadian home in search of love. He reconnects with his father, brothers and nephew and enjoys some carefree times but ultimately realizes that his search for love will be unsuccessful. Gower Champion directed and choreographed “The Happy Time” and won Tony awards in both categories. Robert Goulet, who played Bonnard, won a Tony Award as best actor in a musical. Listen to Goulet perform the title number from “The Happy Time.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY-sQFJ5e00

 

 

Musical musings: So much of a musical’s success depends on the simple musicality of its central idea that it is always a wonder how a group of otherwise talented people could have chosen a rhythmless, tuneless idea and then tried dancing to it. The central story of The Happy Time is so entirely unmusical that the composer, lyricist and choreographer were foredoomed not only to irrelevance but to a production that had no music theatre identity at all. When it is musical, it is very musical, but then when it is musical, it has very little to do with The Happy Time. The songs and the dances could be easily lifted and then dropped in to a dozen different stories and be just as relevant. We are left with an unmusical musical that has an instantly forgettable, old-fashioned score, an abundance of wonderful dances, a perfectly ridiculous book and an overall quality that can best be defined as duration. – Martin Gottfried in Women’s Wear Daily

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