Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber

by Block, Geoffrey

  In the earlier musical manuscript (Draft 1) Kern had Ravenal introduce the main chorus of “Make Believe” with a different text (beginning with “As the river goes so time goes”), and while the text is crossed out, the melody provides the underscoring between Ravenal and Vallon before the former sings the first A section of “Where’s the Mate for Me?” Also in Draft 1 after Ravenal hears Magnolia’s piano theme, a chorus of Girls rather than Ravenal himself repeats the theme. Kern’s inspiration to have Magnolia’s piano theme intrude upon Ravenal’s song was apparently not part of the initial conception.

  In contrast to Draft 2, a draft that clearly served as the model for the published vocal scores, Draft 1 does not show the third and fourth sections of “Make Believe,” sections that provide much psychological nuance and musical richness to the scene. Instead, Draft 1 brings back the six measures of coda and the final confrontation between Ravenal and Vallon. As in Draft 2, the scene in Draft 1 concludes with Magnolia seeing Joe, and their dialogue (not given) is underscored by the opening strains of “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.”

  68. Included among this group of song hits are “When I Grow Too Old to Dream” from The Night Is Young (1935) with Romberg, and a trio of hits with Kern, “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” and “Can I Forget You?” from High, Wide and Handsome (1937), and the Academy Award–winning “The Last Time I Saw Paris” from Lady, Be Good (1941). Soon after he had begun working with Richard Rodgers, Hammerstein wrote “It Might as Well Be Spring” and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” for State Fair (1945) with Rodgers and “All through the Day” from Centennial Summer (1946) with Kern.

  69. Beginning with the first of three versions of Show Boat in 1929, Hollywood would adapt twenty-six of Hammerstein’s Broadway shows for film.

  70. Kern turned down Hammerstein’s offer in 1942 to write a musical based on Lynn Riggs’s play, Green Grow the Lilacs (1931). One year later the property was turned over to Rodgers. The result, of course, was Oklahoma!

  71. The Annie Oakley property turned out to be Berlin’s greatest book show, Annie Get Your Gun, in 1946 with a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields.

  72. The quotation is from Bordman, Jerome Kern, 294. The sensitive issues explored in Show Boat have hardly gone away. In reviewing the 1993 Toronto production of Show Boat, directed by Prince, theater critic John Lahr found it necessary to respond to the Coalition to Stop Show Boat, a group that tried to close the show for its alleged “racist, anti-African propaganda.” According to Lahr “the past must be remembered for its sins as well as for its triumphs” and Show Boat admirably “chronicles slavery not to condone but to deplore it.” “Mississippi Mud,” New Yorker, October 25, 1993, 123–26; quotation on p. 126.

  73. Ibid., 126.

  Chapter 3: Anything Goes

  1. Porter’s original lyric, “I wouldn’t care for those nights in the air / That the fair Mrs. Lindbergh went through,” intended for the unproduced Star Dust (1931), was replaced in Anything Goes by the now familiar “Flying too high with some guy in the sky / Is my idea of nothing to do, / Yet I get a kick out of you.” See Eells, The Life That Late He Led, 113, and Robert Kimball, ed., The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, 167 and 270.

  2. Eells, The Life That Late He Led, 111; Miles Kreuger, “Some Words About ‘Anything Goes,’” 13; and Lee Davis, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern, 329–36. Kreuger also points out that the Bolton-Wodehouse book was not really about a shipwreck. In fact, a fake bomb created a mood of terror that was eventually alleviated by a celebratory prayer, “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” Davis’s more detailed survey of the early genesis of Anything Goes has the advantage of being based on a previously unknown first draft from 1934 in addition to Bolton’s less reliable reconstruction of the still-missing second draft (the rejected draft) years later. Davis does not seem to be aware of the Bolton scenario now in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, but Ethan Mordden discusses it briefly in Sing for Your Supper, 69–70. Thanks to James Hepokoski for calling my attention to the existence of the Bolton scenario.

  3. Richard G. Hubler, The Cole Porter Story, 30.

  4. Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: ‘Anything Goes’ as Long as Victor Moore, Ethel Merman and William Gaxton Are Present,” New York Times, November 22, 1934, 26.

  5. John McGlinn, “The Original ‘Anything Goes,’” 30.

  6. Gerald Mast, Can’t Help Singin,’ 194. Many thanks are due to Roberta Staats of The Cole Porter Musical and Literary Property Trusts for generously sending me a copy of Porter’s twenty-nine-page will, and to trustee Robert H. Montgomery Jr. for confirming its contents.

  7. In the McGlinn recording “There’s No Cure for Travel” is relegated to the appendix.

  8. The McGlinn notes indicate that Merman’s principal objection was the line “She made the maid who made the room,” with its implied homosexuality. Ibid., 33. A similar line appears in act I, scene 2, when Billy asks if Reno made the boat and a character named Snooks replies: “Did she make the Boat? She made the Cap’n!” Perhaps because of its heterosexual implications this line was permissible and could be retained in the dialogue (see the 1934 libretto, 1–2–13).

  9. In this instance McGlinn was reluctant to perform an appendectomy so he inserted “What a Joy to Be Young” in the main body of his recording rather than its rightful place in his appendix beside “There’s No Cure Like Travel,” “Kate the Great,” and “Waltz Down the Aisle.”

  10. Kreuger, “Some Words about ‘Anything Goes,’” 17.

  11. Ibid., 17.

  12. McGlinn, “The Original ‘Anything Goes,’” 33.

  13. Perhaps because present-day late-arriving listeners usually come into the theater already whistling “I Get a Kick Out of You,” McGlinn took the initiative of placing “Buddie, Beware” in the body of his recording rather than the appendix.

  14. Weidman has also written three librettos for Sondheim musicals, Pacific Overtures (1976), Assassins (1990), and Road Show (2008).

  15. Atkinson, “The Play: ‘Anything Goes,’” 26.

  16. Ibid., 26.

  17. Eells, The Life That Late He Led, 116.

  18. Lewis Funke, “Theatre: ‘Anything Goes’ Revival of Musical Opens at Orpheum,” New York Times, May 16, 1962, 35.

  19. Ibid., 35.

  20. George Abbott, “Mister Abbott,” 187.

  21. 1962 libretto, 1–8–59. Many thanks to Louis H. Aborn, president of Tams-Witmark, for graciously allowing me to examine the 1934, 1962, and 1987 Anything Goes librettos, and to John L. Hughes, managing director of Samuel French Limited in London, for generously supplying a reference copy of the 1935 London libretto.

  22. Stephen Holden, “A Glimpse of Olden Days, via Cole Porter,” New York Times, October 18, 1987, section 2, p. 5.

  23. “Son Helping to Update Crouse’s ‘Anything Goes,’ New York Times, August 25, 1987, section 3, 14. For West Side Story, librettist Arthur Laurents created a deliberately artificial and meaningless slang that would never become old-fashioned and require updating.

  24. Kreuger, “The Annotated ‘Anything Goes,’” 133.

  25. Ibid., 133–37. Despite Kreuger’s best efforts, he was unable to discover the full meaning of the reference, “Drumstick Lipstick,” and concluded that its meaning “is lost to the ages.” In the new millennium, readers of Slate Magazine’s Timothy Noah replied to his plea and located two 1934 references to Drumstick lipstick in New York Times ads for Drumstick face power and the Drumstick compact, various cosmetic products manufactured by the French firm, Charbert. Noah announced the solution in “Drumstick Lipstick, Explained!” posted June 16, 2005.

  26. Eells, The Life That Late He Led, 124.

  27. A more direct reference to Aimée Semple McPherson had occurred in Moss Hart’s sketch on the headline “Gandhi Goes on Hunger Strike” in the 1933 revue As Thousands Cheer (music by Berlin).

  28. “Son Helping to Update Crouse’s ‘Anything Goes,’” sec. 3, 14.

  29. Ibi
d., 14.

  30. Holden, “A Glimpse of Olden Days,” 35.

  31. 1934 libretto, 2–1–11.

  32. Those concerned by this usurpation of Hope’s role and her solo opportunity may be somewhat placated to learn that in 1987 she is given a new interpolation, “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye” (act II, scene 1), and a duet with Billy and some sailors, “All through the Night” (a song from the original 1934 version now transferred to act II, scene 2). Furthermore, she is allowed to retain her interpolated duet with Billy in act I, scene 7, “It’s De-Lovely,” which had been introduced in act I, scene 2, of the 1962 version (see the online website).

  33. 1934 libretto, 1–6–71. Mrs. Wentworth is the owner of the Pomeranian canine that Billy turns into a Mexican hairless.

  34. In 1962 Billy is Chinchilian. The phrase “putting on the dog” made a comeback. Throughout the gestation of this first edition of Enchanted Evenings the New Yorker regularly displayed ads for “Put on the Dog” T-shirts, the expected side of the shirt featuring drawings of the front or back of a dog.

  35. Gerald Bordman, “Preserving the Heritage: The Living Record,” in Musical Theatre in America, ed. Glenn Loney, 407.

  36. From Pal Joey, “I Could Write a Book.”

  37. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music defines a triplet as “three notes of equal value to be played in the time normally occupied by two notes of the same value, indicated by the figure 3.” Don Randel, ed., The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 873.

  38. “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (lyrics, Stephen Sondheim; music, Jule Styne) from Gypsy (1959), also written for Merman as the eccentric Rose, uses a variation of this idea on the title words.

  39. In an early version of “Blow, Gabriel Blow,” vastly different melodically but otherwise rhythmically identical to the familiar version, the triplets are absent. See the Cole Porter Collection, Box 15, Folder 121, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

  40. “Easy to Love,” Billy’s love song to Hope, dropped because of its difficulty for William Gaxton, also retains Reno’s half-note triplet in the midst of a chromatic line.

  41. Porter harmonizes “if today” with a dominant seventh on C (C-E-G-B[]), a chord that leads to a change of key (F major) two measures later.

  42. See Stephen Citron, Noel & Cole, 112.

  43. Those responsible for choosing the interpolated songs either inadvertently or by design discovered two that fit in with the syncopated world of Reno and Billy, “Friendship” and “It’s De-Lovely,” both of which share melodic fragments in common with the original “Anything Goes” and, of course, many other Porter songs.

  Chapter 4: Porgy and Bess

  1. “Gershwin Gets His Music Cues for ‘Porgy’ on Carolina Beach,” New York Herald Tribune, July 8, 1934, sec. 5, 2, and George Gershwin; reprinted in Merely Armitage, ed., George Gershwin, 72–77.

  2. See Frederick S. Roffman, “At Last the Complete ‘Porgy and Bess,’” New York Times, September 19, 1976, sec. 2, 1+, and Allen Woll, Black Musical Theatre, 165–66. Shortly before these exploratory negotiations the Metropolitan Opera introduced Louis Gruenberg’s opera The Emperor Jones. Although well received, Gruenberg’s opera, which featured Lawrence Tibbett singing the title role in blackface, was performed only ten times in 1933 and 1934. African Americans were similarly excluded in most of the other important roles.

  3. Edward Jablonski, Gershwin, 194–96.

  4. Only one year after its Met debut the international reputation of Porgy and Bess as an opera was further enhanced in Glyndebourne. A third uncut recording generated by this production was made in 1989. See the Discography and Filmography in the online website.

  5. After Gershwin’s Pardon My English, Freedley (without Aarons) would produce four hits for Porter shows: Anything Goes (1934), Red, Hot and Blue! (1936), Leave It to Me! (1938), and Let’s Face It (1941).

  6. See especially Hollis Alpert, The Life and Times of “Porgy and Bess,” 11–118; David Ewen, George Gershwin, 218–65; Jablonski, Gershwin, 250–91; and Charles Schwartz, Gershwin, 243–71. For an important source on the genesis of Porgy and Bess that was published since the first edition of Enchanted Evenings, see Howard Pollack, George Gershwin, 567–91.

  7. Dorothy Heyward, “Porgy’s Goat,” Harper’s 215 (December 1957): 37.

  8. Jablonski, Gershwin, 255.

  9. The outline of scenes and songs in the online website indicates the division of lyrical labor between DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin.

  10. Gershwin began his orchestration with act I, scene 2, completing it in February 1935. In a letter to Schillinger (May 16) the composer wrote that he had completed act I, scene 1. act II occupied Gershwin’s attentions at least for the remainder of May and June, and on July 19 Gershwin conducted a run-through of acts I and II at the CBS studio. Completion dates for act III are even more meticulously documented: scene 1 (July 22); scene 2 (August 4), scene 3 (August 23). Several weeks later Gershwin wrote on the first page of the orchestral score, “finished September 2, 1935.”

  11. Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes, “‘Porgy and Bess,’ Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin; Gershwin Work Based on DuBose Heyward’s Play,” New York Times, October 11, 1935, 30.

  12. Atkinson and Downes, ibid.

  13. Downes, ibid.

  14. Atkinson, ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Downes, ibid.

  17. Ibid. Several days later the New York Times gave the composer an opportunity to respond at some length to his critics: “I chose the form I have used for ‘Porgy and Bess’ because I believe that music lives only when it is in serious form. When I wrote the ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ I took ‘Blues’ and put them in a large and more serious form. That was twelve years ago and the ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is still very much alive, whereas if I had taken the same themes and put them in songs they would have been gone years ago.” G. Gershwin, 1.

  18. Jablonski, Gershwin, 264.

  19. Virgil Thomson, “George Gershwin,” 18.

  20. Thomson, “Porgy in Maplewood,” New York Herald Tribune, October 19, 1941; reprinted in Thomson, The Musical Scene (New York: Knopf, 1945), 167–69.

  21. Vernon Duke, “Gershwin, Schillinger, and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences,” Musical Quarterly 33 (January 1947): 108.

  22. Richard Rodgers, “Foreword,” The Gershwins, by Robert Kimball and Alfred Simon (New York: Atheneum, 1973), xiii.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Schwartz, Gershwin, 318.

  25. George Gershwin, “Rhapsody in Catfish Row,” 1–2. Interestingly, neither Atkinson nor Downes was bothered by Gershwin’s songs. In fact, according to Atkinson it was their presence that made the “hour of formal music transitions” palatable. Similarly, Downes may have felt that there were a few songs too many “which hold back the dramatic development,” but he undeniably shared Atkinson’s view that “it is in the lyrical moments [i.e., songs] that Mr. Gershwin is most completely felicitous.” Gershwin finds an ardent recent defender in Lawrence Starr, who observes that “for a nineteenth-century European like Verdi, it is acceptable—perhaps even appropriate and admirable—to have ‘hit tunes’ in an opera; for a twentieth-century American it is inappropriate and vulgar.” Starr, “Gershwin’s ‘Bess,’” 430.

  26. Gershwin, “Rhapsody in Catfish Row,” 1.

  27. Richard Crawford, “Gershwin’s Reputation,” 259.

  28. Charles Hamm, “Theatre Guild Production,” 495–532.

  29. The following discussion of the “Buzzard Song” is adapted (with some changes) from Block, “Gershwin’s Buzzard.”

  30. The play by Dorothy and DuBose Heyward was originally published by Doubleday in 1927. Page references in this chapter correspond to the version of Porgy anthologized in Famous American Plays of the 1920s (New York: Dell, 1959), 207–307. The typescript of DuBose Heyward’s libretto with George Gershwin’s annotations is now housed in the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Gershwin C
ollection, Box 27, Item 2).

  31. Dorothy and Dubose Heyward, Porgy, 252.

  32. Typescript libretto, 2–18.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid., 2–14.

  35. Armitage, George Gershwin, 52.

  36. Isaac Goldberg, George Gershwin, 325.

  37. Ewen, George Gershwin, 231.

  38. Jablonski, 288.

  39. The original 78 R.P.M. discs (Victor 11878/81) were reissued on long-playing records (RCA Camden CAL 500) and again on CDs (Pearl Gemm CDS 9483). At the same October 14 session, which took place only four days after the Broadway premiere, Tibbett also recorded “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and, with Helen Jepson, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.” The selections sung by Tibbett and Jepson have also been reissued on Pearl Gemm CDS 9483. The baritone was the Met’s most highly marketable commodity where new operas were concerned, and he had already portrayed a black man there (the title role of Louis Gruenberg’s Emperor Jones in 1933). It was not until the administration of Rudolf Bing that black singers were welcomed at the Met (Marian Anderson, the first, followed closely by Robert McFerrin, were both in 1955).