Read Online Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber by Geoffrey Block - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Geoffrey Block
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this greatness to its triumph over “libretto problems.” 13 Even
Show Boat
aficionado Kreuger corroborates the verdict of earlier complaints: “As a concession to theatrical conventions of the time, Hammerstein kept everyone alive to the end and even arranged a happy reunion for the long-parted lovers, decisions, he revealed to this writer, that he came to regret.” 14
Despite these reservations, only Lehman Engel, the distinguished Broadway conductor and the first writer to establish canonical criteria for the American musical (see the “Coda” to chapter 1 ), would banish
Show Boat
from this elite group. Although Engel acknowledges that
Show Boat
’s “score and lyrics are among the best ever written in our theater,” he tempers this praise by his assessment of “serious weaknesses.” 15 For Engel,
Show Boat
’s “characters are two-dimensional, its proportions are outrageous, its plot development predictable and corny, and its ending unbearably sweet.” 16 Engel is particularly perturbed by six “not only silly but sloppy” coincidences that take place in Chicago within a three-week period in 1904 (significantly all in the second act), coincidences that are comically improbable, even in a city with half its present population. 17
Of the two principal collaborators, Hammerstein (1895–1960) had far more experience with operetta-type musicals as well as recent successes.
Wild-flower
(1923), created with co-librettist Otto Harbach and composers Herbert Stothart and Vincent Youmans, launched a phenomenally successful decade for Hammerstein as librettist, lyricist, and director for many of Broadway’s most popular operettas and musical comedies:
Rose-Marie
(1924) and
The Wild Rose
(1926) with Rudolf Friml and Stothart;
Song of the Flame
(1925) with George Gershwin and Stothart; and the still-revived
The Desert Song
(1926) with Sigmund Romberg. Two years before
Show Boat
Hammerstein had also collaborated with Harbach and Kern on the latter’s most recent success,
Sunny
.
Kern (1885–1945), whose mother was a musician, “had some European training in a small town outside of Heidelberg” when he was seventeen and studied piano, counterpoint, harmony, and composition the following year at the New York College of Music. 18 Ten years before
Show Boat
, Kern stated in interviews that “songs must be suited to the action and the mood of the play.” 19 At the same time he also considered devoting his full attention to composing symphonies.
Although there is no reason to doubt Kern’s aspiration “to apply modern art to light music as Debussy and those men have done to more serious work,” 20 it was not until
Show Boat
that Kern was able to fully realize these goals. Kern had, of course, previously created complete scores for an impressive series of precocious integrated musicals during the Princess Theatre years (1915–1918), at least two of which,
Very Good Eddie
and
Leave It to Jane
, have been successfully revived in recent decades. For the earlier years of his career, however, Kern had been confined mainly to composing interpolated songs to augment the music of others. Two of these, “How’d You Like to Spoon with Me?” interpolated into
The Earl and the Girl
(1905), and “They Didn’t Believe Me” from
The Girl from Utah
(1914), remain among his best known. Similarly,
Sally
(1920) and
Sunny
(1925), two vehicles for the superstar Marilyn Miller and his most popular shows composed during the years between the intimate Princess Theatre productions and the grandiose
Show Boat
, are remembered primarily for their respective songs “Look for the Silver Lining” and “Who?” and have not fared well in staged revivals.
Before 1924, Edna Ferber had never even heard of the once-popular traveling river productions that made their home on show boats. By the following summer she had begun the novel
Show Boat
, which was published serially in
Woman’s Home Companion
between April and September 1926 and
Show Boat
aficionado Kreuger corroborates the verdict of earlier complaints: “As a concession to theatrical conventions of the time, Hammerstein kept everyone alive to the end and even arranged a happy reunion for the long-parted lovers, decisions, he revealed to this writer, that he came to regret.” 14
Despite these reservations, only Lehman Engel, the distinguished Broadway conductor and the first writer to establish canonical criteria for the American musical (see the “Coda” to chapter 1 ), would banish
Show Boat
from this elite group. Although Engel acknowledges that
Show Boat
’s “score and lyrics are among the best ever written in our theater,” he tempers this praise by his assessment of “serious weaknesses.” 15 For Engel,
Show Boat
’s “characters are two-dimensional, its proportions are outrageous, its plot development predictable and corny, and its ending unbearably sweet.” 16 Engel is particularly perturbed by six “not only silly but sloppy” coincidences that take place in Chicago within a three-week period in 1904 (significantly all in the second act), coincidences that are comically improbable, even in a city with half its present population. 17
Of the two principal collaborators, Hammerstein (1895–1960) had far more experience with operetta-type musicals as well as recent successes.
Wild-flower
(1923), created with co-librettist Otto Harbach and composers Herbert Stothart and Vincent Youmans, launched a phenomenally successful decade for Hammerstein as librettist, lyricist, and director for many of Broadway’s most popular operettas and musical comedies:
Rose-Marie
(1924) and
The Wild Rose
(1926) with Rudolf Friml and Stothart;
Song of the Flame
(1925) with George Gershwin and Stothart; and the still-revived
The Desert Song
(1926) with Sigmund Romberg. Two years before
Show Boat
Hammerstein had also collaborated with Harbach and Kern on the latter’s most recent success,
Sunny
.
Kern (1885–1945), whose mother was a musician, “had some European training in a small town outside of Heidelberg” when he was seventeen and studied piano, counterpoint, harmony, and composition the following year at the New York College of Music. 18 Ten years before
Show Boat
, Kern stated in interviews that “songs must be suited to the action and the mood of the play.” 19 At the same time he also considered devoting his full attention to composing symphonies.
Although there is no reason to doubt Kern’s aspiration “to apply modern art to light music as Debussy and those men have done to more serious work,” 20 it was not until
Show Boat
that Kern was able to fully realize these goals. Kern had, of course, previously created complete scores for an impressive series of precocious integrated musicals during the Princess Theatre years (1915–1918), at least two of which,
Very Good Eddie
and
Leave It to Jane
, have been successfully revived in recent decades. For the earlier years of his career, however, Kern had been confined mainly to composing interpolated songs to augment the music of others. Two of these, “How’d You Like to Spoon with Me?” interpolated into
The Earl and the Girl
(1905), and “They Didn’t Believe Me” from
The Girl from Utah
(1914), remain among his best known. Similarly,
Sally
(1920) and
Sunny
(1925), two vehicles for the superstar Marilyn Miller and his most popular shows composed during the years between the intimate Princess Theatre productions and the grandiose
Show Boat
, are remembered primarily for their respective songs “Look for the Silver Lining” and “Who?” and have not fared well in staged revivals.
Before 1924, Edna Ferber had never even heard of the once-popular traveling river productions that made their home on show boats. By the following summer she had begun the novel
Show Boat
, which was published serially in
Woman’s Home Companion
between April and September 1926 and
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