Jacques Ibert / Seussical
On this day in classical music: Jacques Ibert’s “Divertissement” was given its premiere in Paris in 1930. Ibert studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome, on his first attempt. Ibert later became director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome and headed the Paris Opera and the Opera Comique. Ibert composed seven operas, five ballets, incidental music for plays and films, choral works and chamber music. He is best remembered today for his orchestral work “Escales” and the charming “Divertissement.” Listen to the Artvento Woodwind Quintet perform the first movement of Ibert’s “Trois Pieces Breves.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPuNur3gaZE
Jacques Ibert
On this day in the musical theatre: Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ musical “Seussical” opened on Broadway in 2000. Based on the children’s stories by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), the musical had a troubled tryout period with several cast and creative team members fired before the show opened. While bits of several Dr. Seuss books were incorporated into the production, the musical mainly dealt with “Horton Hears a Who,” the story of Horton the Elephant’s endeavors to protect the people of Whoville, who live on a tiny speck of dust. The Cat in the Hat served as musical guide to the proceedings, sometimes as an outside observer, other times as devil’s advocate. During the musical’s 197-performance run, the Cat in the Hat was played by David Shiner, Rosie O’Donnell and Cathy Rigby. The musical has since become popular among regional theaters and in school productions. Listen to Rigby and the cast perform “A Day for the Cat in the Hat” on the Rosie O’Donnell Show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8W7BlINkDg&playnext=1&list=PL6855488FBF03E820&feature=results_main
Seussical – Original Broadway Cast
Musical musings: The songs in “Seussical” were written by the gifted musical team Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (“Once on This Island,” “Ragtime”), who also share credit for the book; otherwise, it is now difficult to say just who is responsible for what in this force-fed hybrid of stories by Dr. Seuss, the eternally beloved creator of whimsical children’s books. The director of record, whose name still appears on posters and in programs, is Frank Galati, but he is known to have left the musical after its poorly received Boston tryout, to be replaced by the officially anonymous Rob Marshall. Mr. Marshall is the brother of the show’s choreographer, Kathleen Marshall (“Kiss Me, Kate”), whose graceful, inventive stamp is strangely missing in the high-impact aerobics offered here. The set and costume designs have also gone through more than one set of hands. Whoever the many chefs were, the finished product is a flavorless broth. The heightened brightness of all the ingredients — the eye-searing design palette, the dizzying lighting effects, the bouncy orchestrations, those mega-watt smiles — perversely meld into a general gray dimness. “Seussical” doesn’t inspire revulsion or hatred; it doesn’t, in fact, inspire any strong emotional response. Numbness creeps over you as you watch it, and you start to think that even a little physical discomfort, like your feet going to sleep, might be welcome as a sign that you’re still sentient. This glazed feeling stems mostly from the gaping divide between the sensibilities of the show’s source, the drawings and narrative verses of Dr. Seuss, and that of their presentation. Striking the right tone — one that would be both child- and adult-friendly — has apparently been a problem with “Seussical” from its early rehearsals. One of the repeated lines in “Seussical” is “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” The same might be said of theatrical concepts. The real fable to be found in “Seussical: The Musical” is that there is no disgrace in being small; it’s trying to look big, when you’re innately little, that throws things off-kilter. The Whos may survive the predations of a larger, destructive universe; “Seussical,” sadly, does not. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times
Erich Wolfgang Korngold / Sunday in the Park With George
On this day in classical music: Austrian-born composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold died in Los Angeles at age 60 in 1957. A child prodigy, Korngold completed his first orchestral score, titled the “Schauspiel Overture,” when he was 14. His opera “Die Tote Stadt” (The Dead City) became an international success following its 1920 premiere. In 1934, Korngold was invited to Hollywood to adapt Mendelssohn’s incidental music for his “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for a big screen adaptation. Korngold returned to Austria but was again asked to compose a score for a Hollywood film in 1938. His score for “The Adventures of robin Hood” won an Academy Award. Not long after Korngold’s arrival in California, Hitler annexed Austria which became part of the German Empire. Korngold would later say that writing the “Robin Hood” score saved his life. Korngold also won an Oscar for his score of “Anthony Adverse.” Along with Max Steiner and Alfred Newman, Korngold is considered one of the founders of film music. Listen to an Australian youth orchestra perform the overture to Korngold’s “The Sea Hawk.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIE35ifLIpQ
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
On this day in the musical theatre: Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George” was given a scaled-down revival at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory in 2005. The production incorporated shifting panels on the sides and rear of the stage onto which the story’s changing scenes could be projected. The London production was so successful, winning five Olivier Awards, that it transferred to Broadway with original London leads Daniel Evans (as Georges Seurat) and Jenna Russell (as his mistress Dot). Both earned Olivier awards for their performances and the production took the award for Outstanding Musical Production. Evans and Russell also received Tony nominations for their roles in the Broadway transfer. Listen to Evans and Russell perform “Move On.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYytwiyVRpg
Sunday in the Park With George – London Revival Cast
Musical musings: “Look!” says the man for whom seeing is everything, in a voice that both commands and beseeches. “Look!” This directive is issued by the painter Seurat, played by Daniel Evans in the glorious revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” And even if George’s mother, to whom he is ostensibly speaking, pays him no mind, we certainly do. How could we not look at the rhapsody of images that keeps unfolding before us? Directed by Sam Buntrock, this production uses 21st-century technology to convey the vision of a 19th-century Pointillist to truly enchanting effect. But in “Sunday in the Park With George,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1985, looking involves much more than registering what’s pretty, what’s shocking, what’s new. The great gift of this production, first staged in London two years ago, is its quiet insistence that looking is the art by which all people shape their lives. As a consequence, a familiar show shimmers with a new humanity and clarity that make theatergoers see it with virgin eyes. And while “Sunday” remains a lopsided piece — pairing a near-perfect, self-contained first act with a lumpier, less assured second half — this production goes further than any I’ve seen in justifying the second act’s existence. Yet thanks in part to the production’s inventive visuals — including a lovely time-traveling segue — this act has a charm and sensitivity it lacked in earlier incarnations. Also thanks to Mr. Evans and Ms. Russell, a humility. The 20th-century George’s lack of artistic direction feels touchingly of a piece with this second act, which becomes a paean to the process of self-questioning, even when answers are distant at best. That the second act ends as the first does, in a ravishing epiphany of artistic harmony, now feels more than ever like a loving benediction, bestowed by the show’s creators on its audiences. Every member of those audiences, whether consciously or not, is struggling for such harmony in dealing with the mess of daily reality. How generous of this production — and it is the generosity of all great art — that it allows you, for a breathless few moments, to achieve that exquisite, elusive balance. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times writing about the 2008 Broadway transfer of “Sunday in the Park With George”
Howard Hanson / Merrily We Roll Along
On this day in classical music: Serge Koussevitzky conducted the premiere of Howard Hanson’s “Symphony No. 2,” subtitled the “Romantic,” with the Boston Symphony in 1930. By far the most popular of Hanson’s seven symphonies, the Second features a brief excerpt that became known as the Interlochen Theme, a romantic, evocative melody that is still used today to close all concerts at the popular music institution in Interlochen, Michigan. Hanson composed much of the Romantic symphony during one of his frequent visits to Interlochen. Hanson was director of the Eastman School of Music from 1924 to 1964 and was founder of the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra. He had a long partnership with Mercury Records for which he recorded many of his own works as well as other notable compositions by American composers. Hanson once estimated that 2,000 works by more than 500 American composers were premiered during his tenure at the Eastman School. The Romantic symphony was commissioned by Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony. Listen to the World Youth Symphony Orchestra perform the Interlochen Theme from Hanson’s “Symphony No. 2.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2dVof0WDpU
Howard Hanson
On this day in the musical theatre: Stephen Sondheim’s ill-fated musical “Merrily We Roll Along” closed on Broadway after just 16 performances in 1981. Based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, “Merrily We Roll Along” focuses on Franklin Shepard, a talented composer of Broadway musicals who has abandoned his friends and his songwriting career to become a Hollywood producer. Like the play, the musical begins at the height of his Hollywood fame and moves backwards in time, showing snapshots of the most important moments in Shepard’s life that shaped the man that he is today. Considered a cult show by industry insiders, “Merrily We Roll Along” has been produced numerous times over the years, each time reflecting a series of changes designed to improve and clarify the story. Despite its short run, the musical produced several songs that have remained popular with recording artists: “Not a Day Goes By,” “Good Thing Going,” “Old Friends” and “Our Time.” Listen to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Colin Donnell perform “Old Friends” in a promotional video for an Encores! production. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5U_C668gS8
Merrily We Roll Along – Original Broadway Cast
Musical musings: As we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one’s heart broken at regular intervals. Usually the heartbreak comes from Sondheim’s songs — for his music can tear through us with an emotional force as moving as Gershwin’s. And sometimes the pain is compounded by another factor — for some of Sondheim’s most powerful work turns up in shows (“Anyone Can Whistle,” “Pacific Overtures”) that fail. Suffice it to say that both kinds of pain are abundant in “Merrily We Roll Along.” Sondheim has given this evening a half-dozen songs that are crushing and beautiful — that soar and linger and hurt. But the show that contains them is a shambles. (In the penultimate number), an ironic, idealistic anthem titled “Our Time,” Sondheim’s searing songwriting voice breaks through to address, as no one else here does, the show’s poignant theme of wasted lives. But what’s really being wasted here is Sondheim’s talent. And that’s why we watch “Merrily We Roll Along” with an ever-mounting — and finally upsetting — sense of regret – Frank Rich in The New York Times
Richard Strauss / The Baker’s Wife
On this day in classical music: Richard Strauss’ tone-poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was given its world premiere in Frankfurt in 1897 with the composer conducting. Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise of the same name, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” has remained a popular work in the orchestral repertoire since its premiere. The initial fanfare — which Strauss referred to as “Sunrise” in a set of program notes — became enormously popular thanks to its inclusion in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The evocative piece starts with a sustained low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and organ. That leads into the famous brass fanfare that introduces the “dawn” motif (from “Zarathustra’s Prologue”). Listen to Gustavo Dudamel and the Berlin Philharmonic perform the opening fanfare from “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szdziw4tI9o
Richard Strauss
On this day in the musical theatre: The British production of Stephen Schwartz’s musical “The Baker’s Wife” opened in London in 1989. It’s based on the French film “La Femme du Boulanger” by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono. After hearing the song “Meadowlark” countless times in auditions, director Trevor Nunn persuaded the authors to mount a London production. Starring Alun Armstrong and Sharon Lee-Hill, “The Baker’s Wife” closed after just 56 performances. A U.S. production of “The Baker’s Wife” toured for six months in 1976 with plans to open on Broadway. It played the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The U.S. cast featured Topol as the baker Aimable and Carole Demas as his wife Genevieve. During the last two weeks of the Kennedy Center run, Topol and Demas were replaced by Paul Sorvino and Patti LuPone. The production never reached Broadway. Despite its two failed productions, “The Baker’s Wife” contains one of Schwartz’s most delightful scores and has become something of a cult musical among theater devotees. Listen to LuPone perform “Gifts of Love” from “The Baker’s Wife.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-IkHHDnwyw
The Baker’s Wife – Pre-Broadway Touring Cast
Musical musings: For the research phase of “The Baker’s Wife,” Schwartz immersed himself in a month-long French music piano-playing regime until the composers’ styles became second nature. “I played Debussy and Ravel on the piano, just so my fingers would automatically go toward those chord structures, and I would have those sounds in my head,” Schwartz recalls. “But when I started to write, I didn’t pay attention to it, and what happened is what I’d hoped. I went instinctively to certain chords I wouldn’t have gone to before I’d done that. It’s like an actor’s preparation, building up sense memory.”
The French Impressionists’ expressiveness, with their frequent use of dissonant, unresolved chords, flowed into Schwartz’s sensibilities like a musical river. It would eventually overflow into his original opening song, “Welcome to Concorde,” some of the chords for “Gifts of Love,” and the mellifluous piano accompaniment to “Meadowlark.” – Carol de Giere in Defying Gravity, The Career of Stephen Schwartz from Godspell to Wicked
John Corigliano / The Red Violin
On this day in classical music: John Corigliano’s “The Red Violin,” a chaconne for violin and orchestra based on themes featured in the 1998 film of the same name, was given its premiere by violinist Joshua Bell and the San Francisco Symphony in 1997. Robert Spano conducted. Listen to Bell perform excerpts from Corigliano’s soundtrack to “The Red Violin.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ITW72y_6s
John Corigliano
On this day in the musical theatre: Sandy Wilson’s musical “The Boy Friend” closed on Broadway in 1955 after a 14-month run. The musical’s original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End history. Its run was soon eclipsed by the musical “Salad Days.” The Broadway production marked Julie Andrews American stage debut. Set in the carefree world of the French Riviera in the Roaring Twenties, “The Boy Friend” is a comic pastiche of 1920s shows. Among its standouts were “Won’t You Charleston With Me?,” “I Could Be Happy With You,” “It’s Never Too Late To Fall In Love” and the lively title number. Listen to “The Riviera” from the original Broadway cast recording. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdBiVuuL4I
The Boy Friend – Original Broadway Cast
Musical musings: “The Red Violin: Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra” draws upon music I composed for the film of the same name. The film spans three centuries in the life of a magnificent but haunted violin in its travels through space and time. A story this episodic needed to be tied together with a single musical idea. For this purpose I used the Baroque device of a chaconne: a repeated pattern of chords upon which the music is built. Against the chaconne chords I juxtaposed Anna’s theme, a lyrical yet intense melody representing the violin builder’s doomed wife. From these elements I wove a series of virtuosic etudes for the solo violin, which followed the instrument from country to country, century to century. I composed these elements before the actual filming, because the actors needed to imitate actual performance of the music. Then, while the film itself was shot, I made — from Anna’s theme, the chaconne, and the etudes — this concert work. While I scored the film just for the soloist and string orchestra (to emphasize the “stringness” of the picture), I composed this seventeen-minute concert work for violin and full orchestra. – John Corigiliano in a program note for “The Red Violin”
Gilbert & Sullivan / The Apple Tree
On this day in classical music: Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta “Iolanthe” received its premiere at London’s Savoy Theater in 1882. It is the seventh collaboration of 14 between the popular duo. The plot, which tells about a group of immortal fairies who find themselves at odds with the House of Peers, satirizes aspects of British government and law. It ran for 398 performances. Listen to famous G&S actor John Reed perform “The Nightmare” song from “Iolanthe.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZgDtWhNP6c
William S. Gilbert
On this day in the musical theatre: Bock and Harnick’s “The Apple Tree” closed on Broadway in 1967. Each of its three acts has its own storyline, but all three are linked by a common theme: someone who believes they want something, but once they get what they wanted, they realize that it wasn’t what they wanted. The three musical playlets are based on Mark Twain’s “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” Frank R. Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger?” and Jules Feiffer’s “Passionella.” Barbara Harris won a Tony Award for best actress in a musical. The production ran for just over a year. An Encores! production in 2005 starred Oklahoma native Kristin Chenoweth in the Harris roles. Listen to that cast perform excerpts from “The Apple Tree.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCxbROTqnUk
