The Leonard Bernstein Letters (63 page)
Read The Leonard Bernstein Letters Online
Authors: Leonard Bernstein
66
The Rural Free Delivery Service of the United States Postal Service.
67
Address added by hand, on the headed writing paper of the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood.
68
James McInerney (1905–63), American lawyer. He joined the FBI in 1935 and was responsible for investigating internal security cases at the Department of Justice during the Second World War. In 1950, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division by President Truman. With the change of administration in 1953, McInerney left the Justice Department and returned to private practice in Washington until his death in a car accident in October 1963. His most famous clients were the Kennedy family, for whom he handled many delicate matters.
69
Bernstein and the New York Stadium Symphony Orchestra recorded four symphonies for American Decca on 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30 June 1953: Beethoven's
Eroica
, Brahms' Fourth, Schumann's Second, and Tchaikovsky's
Pathétique
. A month later, on 28 July, they recorded Dvořák's
New World
.
70
Ciro Cuomo was Diamond's Italian secretary-companion who became his devoted friend.
71
Carnival in Flanders
was a dismal flop, opening on 8 September and closing four days later. Set in Flanders in 1616, the cast included Dolores Gray and John Raitt. It had music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke. The sets were by Oliver Smith.
72
Hazel Flagg
, with a score by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Hilliard, ran on Broadway from 11 February to 19 September 1953.
73
Wonderful Town
began its successful Broadway run of 559 performances on 25 February 1953.
74
Can-Can
, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, opened on 7 May 1953 and ran for 892 performances.
75
Rosalind Russell (as Ruth Sherwood) was the star of
Wonderful Town
.
76
Cheryl Crawford (1902–86), American theater producer. Bernstein was to encounter her again two years later when he was working on
West Side Story
(she withdrew before the show opened). In this letter he responds to Crawford's request for an overture to accompany a summer tour of
Trouble in Tahiti
.
77
Alice Ghostley (1926–2007), American singer and actor. She sang the role of Dinah in
Trouble in Tahiti
on tour, and again when it arrived on Broadway as part of a triple bill called
All In One
(alongside dances by Paul Draper and Tennessee Williams'
27 Wagons Full of Cotton
), described by Brooks Atkinson in
The New York Times
(20 April 1955) as “an evening of superb theatre art.”
78
David Brooks (1915–99), American singer, actor, producer, and director. He directed
Trouble in Tahiti
.
79
Elia Kazan (1909–2003), American film director and co-founder of the Actors Studio. As a student at Williams College he was known as “Gadget”, shortened to “Gadg”. His notorious appearance as a “friendly” witness at the HUAC hearings made him very unpopular among his more liberal friends and colleagues, but his gifts were such that Stanley Kubrick called Kazan, “without question, the best director we have in America.” Much of this letter is about
On the Waterfront
, for which Bernstein wrote his only score composed specially for Hollywood. The majority of the music had been already been recorded in Hollywood, on 24, 27, and 28 April 1954 (see Burlingame 2003, pp. 130–1). Bernstein's
Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront”
was made in 1955 and first performed on 11 August 1955 at Tanglewood. It was dedicated to Alexander Bernstein, who had been born on 7 July.
80
Kazan is exaggerating a little, since Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger had appeared in earlier films, but
On the Waterfront
was their first major success; it was a screen debut for Eve Marie Saint.
81
Some of
On the Waterfront
was filmed in Hoboken, NJ.
82
Serenak was the home of Serge Koussevitzky in the grounds of Tangleword.
83
Bernstein's
Serenade after Plato's Symposium
for violin and orchestra.
84
Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), French composer whose music, with its elements of polytonality and jazz, appealed strongly to Bernstein. One of Bernstein's first recordings (in November 1945) was of Milhaud's
La Création du Monde
, a work he conducted regularly.
85
Bernstein was due to conduct the stage premiere of Milhaud's opera
David
at La Scala in January 1955. At short notice, he canceled in order to devote time to
Candide
, and Nino Sanzogno took over conducting duties for
David
.
86
Antonio Ghiringhelli,
sovrintende
(general manager) of La Scala.
87
George Singer (1908–80) conducted the world premiere of Milhaud's
David
in Jerusalem on 1 June 1954.
88
Milhaud was more diplomatic about Singer in his autobiography,
My Happy Life
: “It was George Singer who took on the job of conducting David and he needed all the patience he could muster […] in the end the singers, the Orchestra of the Jerusalem Radio reinforced by the brass from the Police Band, the Jerusalem Radio Chorus and the Students' Choir of the Conservatoire […] gave my work a rousingly ardent reading. It was, after all, their piece” (Milhaud 1995, p. 228).
89
Bernstein originally planned to play Schuman's Sixth Symphony in his Italian concerts.
90
For
Candide
.
91
Felicia appeared in ten episodes of
Kraft Television Theatre
between 1949 and 1956.
Emma
was broadcast on 24 November 1954, and Felicia played the title role of Emma Woodhouse in a cast that also included Roddy McDowall as Mr. Elton.
92
Felicia appeared opposite Louis Jourdan in the out-of-town tryouts for
Tonight in Samarkand
, a play by Jacques Deval presented in Princeton and Boston. She was not in the cast of the short Broadway run that followed.
93
Charles Roth was “a young conducting student Bernstein taught in 1950 and 1951 at Tanglewood” (Burton 1994, p. 245). Roth was a disturbed individual who threatened to blackmail Bernstein, or to make public Bernstein's letters to him. He is referred to in several letters to Felicia from 1955 as the “Black Fairy”.
94
Eaves and Brooks were the two leading theatrical costume companies in New York.
95
Bernstein's pet-name for Alexander before he was born.
96
Tonight in Samarkand
was directed by Alan Schneider, whose later Broadway credits included the original (1962) production of Edward Albee's
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
97
The London production of
Wonderful Town
opened on 25 February 1955 at the Prince's Theatre.
98
“The Wrong-Note Rag”.
99
A slightly optimistic forecast: the London production of
Wonderful Town
did well, but only ran for 207 performances.
100
“The Black Fairy” was Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter (346) to Felicia of 11 February 1955.
101
For
Wonderful Town
.
102
Milton Greene (1913–2000) was a conductor, arranger, and pianist whose most important Broadway credit was as the original conductor of
Fiddler on the Roof
.
103
Bernstein did as Comden requested and wrote a charming tribute for the record jacket:
Ever since we first met, there has been a beloved object in my life called Betty-and-Adolph. This prodigy, apart from being two very dear people, has for many years supplied me with pure, profound laughter, as it has so many others; and it has a way of turning every hearer into a doting fan. But Betty-and-Adolph is not only a thing of laughter. With the years, it has grown in warmth, understanding, theatrical mastery, subtlety and appeal, always making its personal, sweet-sour comment on the follies and lovable sentimentalities of American life. Betty-and-Adolph as performers represent something complete and exquisite. In recent years I have watched them as creators going forward with increasing power, in a fluid state of development that may lead to any number of new forms. It is my belief that this joyous Cerberus will eventually furnish us with what will one day be known as American opera. Nowhere else in America is there to be found this combination of musical instinct and knowledge, theatrical perfection and literate immediacy. It has been my joy to work with them on two shows, and it is my hope to continue forever.
104
Blitzstein's
Regina
is based on Lillian Hellman's
The Little Foxes
(1939), an extremely successful play that was made into a film starring Bette Davis in 1941 before Blitzstein adapted it for his opera. Regina was first performed on Broadway on 31 October 1949, conducted by Maurice Abravanel.
105
On the Waterfront
won eight Academy Awards in 1955, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actor (Eve Marie Saint), and Best Director (Kazan). Though Bernstein's score was nominated, it didn't win.
106
The winner of the Academy Award for Best Score was Dimitri Tiomkin, for
The High and the Mighty
.
107
In 1955, the idea of a musical version of James M. Cain's
Serenade
– which had so appealed to Bernstein in 1947 – was explored once again, with Arthur Laurents writing the book. As this letter shows, Bernstein was approached to compose the score.
108
A very early mention of the work that became the
Kaddish
Symphony.
109
Bellevue Hospital in New York is famous for its psychiatric facilities.
110
Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl. Their first child, Olivia, was born on 20 April 1955. Olivia's tragic death from measles encephalitis seven years later left Dahl “destroyed” according to Patricia Neal. He never spoke of her, but on the twentieth anniversary of her death he dedicated
The BFG
to Olivia's memory.
111
Bernstein programmed Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony for the concert in Florence, along with Mozart's Symphony No. 39 and the Ravel G major Concerto directed from the piano.
112
Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter of 11 February 1955.
113
The writer James Agee died of a heart attack on 16 May 1955.
114
Alexander Bernstein was born on 7 July 1955.
5
West Side Story
1955–7
It was in the summer and autumn of 1955 that
West Side Story
started to take shape as a viable project. Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Bernstein had quietly set the idea to one side since first discussing it in 1949, but quite suddenly it was on again, thanks to the impetus of reports in the news about gang warfare. The story told in Bernstein's 1957
West Side Log
is that the moment of discovery happened in Hollywood when he had a meeting with Laurents in August 1955, but a letter written to him a month earlier by Laurents suggests that it was more complicated than that. Still, it was the outcome that mattered: a new outline, introducing Puerto Rican immigrants, and, with them, the Latin American musical elements that would be so crucial to the score's colors. As well as refining the plot, a second vital factor was bringing Stephen Sondheim into the project to write the lyrics. Over the next two years, the four collaborators were mostly able to discuss the project in the same place and at the same time – so there's not much correspondence between them about the show – but before they got down to serious work, Robbins responded in detail to the new Laurents–Bernstein outline, giving important clues about how he wanted the show to develop. It was not only as a creative genius that Robbins' role was of such fundamental importance in the evolution of
West Side Story
. On a personal level, he was one of the very few people who could get complete commitment from Bernstein, and who could insist on – and inspire – music of the highest quality. Robbins' letters to Bernstein are often brusque and brutally honest, but the respect they had for each other is unmistakable.
Preparations for the troublesome
Candide
kept Bernstein from devoting himself exclusively to what was still known as “the Romeo show” in mid-1956. And on top of all that, and a busy conducting schedule, there were also television projects. For
Omnibus
, Bernstein's “Introduction to Modern Music” prompted Gunther Schuller to write a long, eloquently argued letter about how to present a balanced account of recent developments in music: he questioned Bernstein's stance on Schoenberg and his complete omission of Webern. (An intriguing sideline: while it's tempting to read too much into the impact of a single letter, can it be a coincidence that a year after Schuller wrote, Webern's
Six Pieces for Orchestra
were included on a Bernstein program with the New York Philharmonic, and in one of the Young People's Concerts?)
While Bernstein was working feverishly on the last stages of
West Side Story
, Felicia took Jamie and Alexander to visit her family in Chile, partly to give him some peace and quiet, and partly to escape what must have been an increasingly intense atmosphere. The consequence is an exchange of letters between Bernstein and Felicia that chronicle the final weeks of composing the show, the rehearsals in New York and Washington, D.C., the changes Bernstein was forced to accept (reluctantly in some cases – but judging from the manuscript evidence of earlier versions of some numbers, the instincts of Robbins, Laurents, and Sondheim were unerringly right), and the euphoria of the first night of the out-of-town try-out at the National Theatre in Washington. Felicia was delighted to hear Bernstein's exciting (and excited) news, and wrote back with plenty of her own, above all some delightful vignettes of the children.