Leonard Bernstein / The Most Happy Fella

On this day in classical music: Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from “West Side Story” was given its premiere by Lukas Foss and the New York Philharmonic in 1961. Bernstein’s Broadway musical, “West Side Story,” had premiered on Broadway in 1957 where it ran for 732 performances. But it was the 1961 big screen version of the “Romeo and Juliet” tale that turned “West Side Story” into a huge success. The popularity of Bernstein’s score prompted the composer to prepare a suite of orchestral music from the show, which became the “Symphonic Dances.” The suite, which featured the Mambo, Cha-Cha, “Somewhere,” “Cool” and five other excerpts, quickly entered the symphonic repertoire and has been recorded by Bernstein (with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic), Seiji Ozawa and most recently, with Gustavo Dudamel with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. Listen to Dudamel and his Venezuelan orchestra perform the “Mambo” from the “Symphonic Dances” from “West Side Story.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFUmQpjGZXE

On this day in the musical theatre: A revival of Frank Loesser’s “The Most Happy Fella” opened on Broadway in 1992. Based on Sidney Howard’s play “They Knew What They Wanted, “The Most Happy Fella” was a poignant tale about a California grape grower who develops a sort of May/December romance with a young waitress. The original 1956 production ran for just over a year. Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House mounted a production in 1991 which featured a two-piano arrangement (in place of a full pit orchestra) that was approved by but never used by Loesser. That production transferred to Broadway where it ran for 229 performances. Scott Waara won a Tony Award for his role as Herman. Listen to Spiro Malas and Sophie Hayden perform “Happy to Make Your Acquaintance” on the 1992 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i5rLSSLjcA

Musical musings: Nostalgia alone does not explain why Americans still adore Broadway musicals of the 1940’s and 50’s. The appeal of these shows is much plainer than that. Men and women step forward and express their most primal desires in simple poetry and unforgettable melodies: I want this. I must go there. I love you. These feelings, which are no less profound for being universal, will never go out of fashion, and neither will the musicals containing them if they are as powerfully acted, sung and staged as the revival of Frank Loesser’s 1956 musical, “The Most Happy Fella,” which opened at the Booth Theater last night. As directed by Gerald Gutierrez and performed by a cast led by Spiro Malas and Sophie Hayden, this work can hold its own with “Carousel” and “The Music Man” on the hit parade of Broadway romantic classics of the golden Rodgers and Hammerstein era. It is so stirring that even as your head tells you that you cannot possibly be moved by its preposterously simple love story of a middle-aged immigrant Napa Valley grape farmer of the 1920’s and his young mail-order bride, the rest of you is tugged right in. One does miss the musical colors of the haunting Don Walker orchestrations at first; the twin pianos that usurp them sound more out of place in a Broadway house than they did at Goodspeed. But I must confess that when I went home after the performance and put on the exemplary 1956 cast album, a boon companion for most of my theatergoing life, it seemed for the first time a little heavy, a little hollow. Or is it just that the new “Most Happy Fella” leaves one’s heart so full that there is no room for anything more? – Frank Rich in The New York Times

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