Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies)

by McHugh, Dominic

  After all have left she looks well worked over. Mrs. Pearce enters.

  During this entire procedure, she speaks to herself practising speech bits like a pup[p]et with the invisible w[h]ip of Higgins above her.

  This outline gives an idea of both the ballet’s structure and its content. Part I is the dance’s exposition: the establishment of its function, and in particular the problems Eliza still faces and which the workmen need to overcome. In the second part, Holm notes that no progress is made, but Eliza is less resistant to the workmen’s efforts. Things work up into a frenzy in the final part, when Eliza is completely overcome and the lessons are completed. It is of note that the literal image of Higgins standing over Eliza with a whip mentioned above has turned into a metaphorical image in this later version.

  With these choreographic notes in mind, we can approach the musical documents with some idea of the images the score had to accompany. Although it is plain which of the various scores represents the version that was orchestrated and made it to the stage at New Haven, the dance pianist’s copy is also of value for the additional annotations about the dancers’ movements at various points (no doubt to help Freda Miller identify which bars of music went with which parts of the dance). The ballet music started with Rittmann’s eleven-bar “Intro to Dress Ballet” (see ex. 4.10); underneath the music, she wrote: “Phil, the above are orchestral exclamations in Higgins’ speech before the dress ballet (no brass).”33 The music is a simple yet attention-grabbing introduction whose pattern and style—strong accents in the first seven bars followed by the more delicate little scales (slightly reminiscent of the introduction to “I Could Have Danced All Night”)—are not unlike the basic clarity of writing found in nineteenth-century ballet music. Rittmann was lucid in her instructions to the orchestrator: no brass was to be used because Higgins would still be speaking in between the orchestral statements, and the separate parts of the introduction were to be differentiated between by allotting them to alternating instrumental groups. Lang adhered to these instructions almost to the letter whilst adding a little nuance of his own: bars 1–2 and 6–7 were played by strings (and harp) as suggested, but the initial fanfare-type motive in bars 3–5 was given to clarinets, bassoon and horns while bars 8–11 were played by flute, oboe, clarinets, and bassoon (without the horns).34

  Rittmann’s score for the ballet is as fine an example of the dance arranger’s art as could be found. She adheres to themes by Loewe for the majority of the number’s 271 bars, yet makes a fluent composition that is fit to stand on its own. The ballet begins with a further eight-bar introduction (on top of “Intro to Dress Ballet”) that gives way to a busy expositional passage to accompany the arrival of the Tailor to start work on Eliza. Bars 19–107 are based mostly on two motives from the central section of “Come to the Ball” (the part that returns in “Accustomed to Her Face”): example 4.11 derives from the line “I can see you now in a gown by Madame Worth, when you enter ev’ry monocle will crash” in “Come to the Ball”; and example 4.12 comes from “Little chaps’ll wish they were Atlas, a queen will want you for her son” (which matches the line “She’ll try to teach the things I taught her, and end up selling flowers instead” in “Accustomed”). Rittmann moves freely through keys in her arrangement and goes from examples 4.11 to 4.12 and back again; this not only reflects the order in which the material appeared in the song—thereby giving the ballet music some structure—but also portrays the music as a ghostly, jumbled-up reminiscence of Higgins’s coaxing words echoing in Eliza’s head. Such a process adds a psychological dimension to the music’s surface task of accompanying the actions of the dancers.

  Ex. 4.10. “Intro to Dress Ballet.”

  Ex. 4.11. “Dress Ballet,” bars 19–27.

  Ex. 4.12. “Dress Ballet,” bars 36–39.

  Ex. 4.13. “Dress Ballet,” bars 68–74.

  The hairdressers enter at bar 36, then at bar 57 Rittmann changes tack and uses two different motives in quick succession. A hint of the opening line of “Why Can’t the English?” in 68–70 is immediately followed by the “I think she’s got it!” theme from “The Rain in Spain” in 71–74. The effect of this is that Higgins’s song about the inadequacies of education is juxtaposed with his memorable expression of delight at the success of his lessons on Eliza; now she has to aim for the same triumph in a different kind of lesson (ex. 4.13). This is repeated a tone higher, then at bar 84, example 4.12 returns, this time in a much lower register, to herald the entrance of the masseuse. Freda Miller’s score is particularly helpful at this point, marking out gestures such as “prance,” “roll sleeves,” “clap,” and “knee bends.” At the beginning of a rising passage from bar 108, a book is placed on Eliza’s head, presumably to teach her to walk with a better posture, and after the buildup of a repeated accompaniment pattern in double octaves by full strings, the beginning of “Wouldn’t it be Loverly?” is sounded in the trumpets and flute at 120 (ex. 4.14).

  Ex. 4.14. “Dress Ballet,” bars 120–125.

  Ex. 4.15. “Dress Ballet,” bars 154–159.

  Ex. 4.16. “Dress Ballet,” bars 169–172.

  The ostinato continues until bar 135, gradually calming down to pianississimo. There is a three-bar silence before the next part of the ballet begins. The Dance Master arrives to teach Eliza the tango, and in a piece of irony “The Rain in Spain” is heard in the underscore. What had been a spontaneous and free dance of jubilation after her success in learning how to speak properly in the middle of the act has now become yet another chore for Eliza. Again, Miller’s score gives us details about the choreography, with comments such as “low jeté lunge,” “double reverse turn,” “tango step,” “shows to Vera [Lee, the Dance Mistress],” and “curtsey.” All of this is accompanied by a straight playing of the first ten bars of “The Rain in Spain,” but a two-bar transition passage introduces a new episode titled “The Lesson” (ex. 4.15). Above the right-hand part, Rittmann wrote “insistent vamp!” and the music indeed takes on a strict, rigorous air. The melody in bars 156–59 (C sharp–D–F natural) is a deliberate distortion of the line “On the plain!” from “The Rain in Spain”; it follows on from the extract from the song heard in the previous section and, allotted by Bennett to a solo clarinet (“mf sweet”), again acts as an illustration of Eliza’s mental confusion.

  At 169 a faster section (marked Più mosso) begins. Although two-fifths of the music remains, this feels like the beginning of the end; the tension never lets up until the final bars of the ballet. The Più mosso section is based on a descending chromatic pattern, on top of which is floated a muted trumpet fanfare, shown in the melody line of bars 171–72 in example 4.16. The same material persists until bar 183, when example 4.12 returns once more. It is worth noting that in the full score, bars 186–89 have been rewritten by Phil Lang; the change increases the harmonic tension by adding new rising chromatic scales in the strings and tuba. This leads more dramatically into the return of example 4.12, which then continues until bar 210. At this point the music whips up into a frenzy, with the dynamic at fortissimo and the whole orchestra breaking into the chorus of “With a Little Bit of Luck.” This develops into a free melody that adds sinister chromatic inflections to Doolittle’s jaunty song. A rising sequence begins at 227, reaching its height at 245 when the same bar is repeated four times before a huge glissando into the opening of the melody of “The Servants’ Chorus” (“Poor Professor Higgins,” ex. 4.17). This is marked furioso and fff; Rittmann’s score also has “climax” and “howling!” After the theme has been played twice tutti, there is a diminuendo while the cellos and trombones sound the theme one last time, and the music ends softly and mysteriously.

  The harmonic complexity of the “Dress Ballet” may be considered both a strength and a weakness. Since Holm conceived it as a “nightmare,” it is suitable that the music should be ghoulish both on the fundamental level of Rittmann’s arrangement and the expansive surface given to it by Bennett’s orchestration. Yet the
number’s extremity also makes it stand out from the rest of the score. None of the other numbers in the show features such a contorted palette of sounds as is found here, so much so that it might have hijacked the entire musical. By extension, the psychological extremity of the choreography was probably also ill-matched with the rest of the show. In a more general sense, the dance also repeated the image (from earlier in the act) of Eliza being taught how to do something, even if these new lessons were of a different nature. It would be fascinating if the producer of a new revival of My Fair Lady decided to include the ballet, but the resolution to cut it in New Haven was undoubtedly born of wisdom.

  Ex. 4.17. “Dress Ballet,” ending.

  “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight”

  The last of the three numbers that were cut in New Haven needs the least introduction. “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” found lasting fame as one of the title character’s solos in the 1958 film of Gigi (though it was cut for the 1973 stage adaptation), but it was originally a song for Eliza to perform in My Fair Lady before she went to the ball. It is mentioned from Outline 1 on (see chap. 3), yet Lerner later confessed that he was not sorry to see it cut. “I never liked it. Fritz did. … It would never have found its way into Gigi except Fritz, that dirty dog, played it one night for Arthur [Freed, the film’s producer] and Vincente [Minnelli, the director] when I was not around, and the following morning I was out-voted three to one. … It pains me to admit it, but I was wrong: it was one of the most touching moments in the film.”35

  The sources for “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” are the second most extensive of any song connected with My Fair Lady (after “Why Can’t the English?”). A lyric from Herman Levin’s papers contains several revelations about the number. With the exception of the first six lines (which consist of simple verse material), Liza’s opening solo (up to the entrance of the servants) is familiar from the version of the song that made it into Gigi. However, the rest of the lyric is completely unknown:

  SERVANTS: Have no fear, you’ll be fine.

  LIZA: No, I won’t.

  SERVANTS: Gracious, proud and refine.

  LIZA: No, I won’t.

  SERVANTS: Stately and serene …

  LIZA: I won’t …

  SERVANTS: Practically a queen …

  LIZA: I won’t …

  SERVANTS: No, Miss Liza, no, you cannot fail.

  LIZA: Fail to end in Reading Gaol.

  Oh, how I shall behave …

  SERVANTS: No, you won’t.

  LIZA: Like I live in a cave.

  SERVANTS: No, you won’t.

  LIZA: Sit when I should stand …

  SERVANTS: You won’t …

  LIZA: Shake the butler’s hand …

  SERVANTS: You won’t …

  LIZA: Future history will write

  This was England’s blackest night.

  SERVANTS: Don’t worry, Miss Liza … (etc.)

  (spoken)

  (Servants leave)

  LIZA: If I were a work of art

  Would I wake his sleeping heart?

  Is perfection the only way?

  If it is—kneel down—and say

  A prayer for me tonight;

  That the night will bring

  Me ev’rything

  I’ve waited for.

  Say a prayer that he’ll discover

  I’m his lover

  For now and evermore.

  Pray that he’s lonely, a ship lost at sea;

  Searching for someone exactly like me.

  And say a prayer that he’ll remember

  Long ago somewhere

  He said a prayer

  For me.36

  The second section involves a dialogue between Eliza and the maids, split into two sections. First, they tell her four times how great she will be, and she rebuts them; then she tells them four times what a disaster she will be, and they rebut her. They comfort her once more and leave. Then begins the most interesting part. Left alone, Eliza moves on from merely worrying about her success at the ball and instead sings about why that success is so important to her. In the verse she asks whether she could “wake his sleeping heart,” and the chorus is this time focused on Higgins. She hopes “that he’ll discover / I’m his lover,” that he is “searching for someone exactly like” her, and that “he’ll remember … he said a prayer / for me.” This adds a layer to the song and changes the focus of the show: Eliza is portrayed as going through the lessons and wanting to triumph, purely to make Higgins love her. As we saw in the case of “Shy,” such an overt declaration of love is foreign to the ultimately ambiguous focus of the musical.

  The musical sources for the song are the most detailed evidence in existence of the creation of a melody by Loewe. Three untitled manuscripts contain snippets of material from the song. One in particular appears to show the genesis of the melody, with three different versions of it on the same page, shown in examples 4.18, 4.19, and 4.20. The shape of the melody is already established in example 4.18, with its characteristic series of turns, then example 4.19 shows the first seven bars almost as they appear in the finished song. The only difference is that the fourth bar contains four eighth notes rather than the two quarter notes that appear in the completed melody; Loewe has bracketed and put short lines above the final two eighth notes of the bar to indicate the notes that are to become quarter notes in the final version, which is the third melody on the page (ex. 4.20, curiously transposed to E-flat major), marked “Att.” (“Attention”).

  The latter is copied out on two other loose manuscripts in the Loewe Collection: one is in F major and reproduces the first eight bars with one small change (the two quarter notes in bar 4 changed to a dotted quarter note and an eighth note) and a small error (the first two notes are transformed from eighth notes to quarter notes, making four beats in a triple-time bar); the other contains just the first three bars in E-flat major. The two documents are quite different in nature to one another. The first is on a page consisting of four separate melodies, the third of which has been crossed out (because it is an early version of the fourth melody on the page) and all of which are slightly untidy; this feels like a true page of sketches. The E-flat major version is on a page titled “Sketches” containing three very short melodic extracts numbered 10, 11 and 12. All three are very brief, very neat, and fluently written, and the first two end with “etc.”; the document seems like a sort of “thematic catalogue” to remind Loewe of melodies he had invented and perhaps intended for a specific purpose. None of the other extracts on these pages is familiar as a song from another Lerner and Loewe show, so either they were very aborted attempts at writing songs for Fair Lady or they were related to another show altogether. Loewe could conceivably have had the melody on his desk for some years before it was used in the New Haven version of this show.

  Ex. 4.18.“Say a Prayer for Me Tonight,” sketch 1.

  Ex. 4.19.“Say a Prayer for Me Tonight,” sketch 2.

  Ex. 4.20.“Say a Prayer for Me Tonight,” sketch 3.

  In spite of the extended lyric reproduced earlier, the version of “Say a Prayer” used in the My Fair Lady tryout was the same as that used in Gigi. Conductor Franz Allers’s photocopy of a copyist’s piano-vocal score shows that this document (which was presumably used to rehearse the number) is almost identical with the published sheet music for the song in its Gigi incarnation.37 The orchestration of the number (by Jack Mason, the uncredited “ghost” orchestrator of My Fair Lady) is identical to this copyist’s score, right down to the fact that the first-time bars lie empty. In the same folder as the “Say a Prayer” orchestration is a two-page manuscript in Russell Bennett’s hand entitled “Bridge After Prayer,” which consists of six bars of transition music based on “Say a Prayer,” leading into an orchestral rendition of one verse of “I Could Have Danced All Night.”38

  It is clear from the cut lyric reproduced above that the original conception of “Say a Prayer” involved an ABA form whereby the lyric for the repeat of A
had a reversed meaning. Perhaps this was Lerner’s attempt to overcome what he evidently considered to be the bland nature of the song: suddenly it became more emphatic and personal in the final chorus. As it is, though, “Say a Prayer” had a similar function in My Fair Lady and Gigi: Eliza and Gigi both sing a simple song about being nervous about a forthcoming event. Nevertheless, the beauty of the melody, the subtle nuances of the harmony, and the sincerity of the lyrics show Lerner and Loewe at their best; and when Julie Andrews sang the number at a tribute concert for Loewe given in New York on March 28, 1988, a few weeks after his death, she was essentially reappropriating one of the finest songs Loewe had written for her in My Fair Lady.39 “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” is a fitting climax to this chapter, because it demonstrates how Lerner and Loewe had the confidence to cut or discard songs if they did not work in the show as a whole, even when the material was of high quality in its own terms. Likewise, the material that did eventually make it into the final version of the score was heavily scrutinized and adjusted before Lerner and Loewe were content with it. This points the way to a new interpretation of My Fair Lady, one which sees the piece as the result of rigorous self-criticism and discerning revision, rather than an organic act of creation from one end of the show to the other.