Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue , acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos , love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals .
198-398: The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones . It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the 1894 play The Romancers ( Les Romanesques ) by Edmond Rostand , concerning two neighboring fathers who trick their children, Luisa and Matt, into falling in love by pretending to feud. The show's original off-Broadway production ran
396-453: A 20th century American composer; the coloratura aria "Glitter and Be Gay", which Barbara Cook sang in the original production; and the grand finale "Make Our Garden Grow". West Side Story (1957) The other musical Bernstein was writing simultaneously with Candide was West Side Story . Bernstein collaborated with director and choreographer Jerome Robbins , book writer Arthur Laurents , and lyricist Stephen Sondheim . The story
594-417: A pageant wagon . For a curtain, he hung various small false curtains across the platform at various times during the play. He also made a sun/moon out of cardboard. One side was painted bright yellow (the sun) and the other was black with a crescent of white (the moon). The sun/moon was hung from a nail in one of the poles and is referred to in the libretto . The orchestra consists of a piano and sometimes also
792-464: A "rape", although he states that he uses the word in its literary sense of "abduction", noting that classical works such as Alexander Pope 's The Rape of the Lock use the word in this sense. (See raptio and bride kidnapping .) In his song "It Depends on What You Pay" he describes different kidnapping scenarios, some comic or outlandish, that he classifies as the "Venetian rape", the " Gothic rape ",
990-615: A Bachelor of Arts, cum laude . Curtis Institute of Music After graduating from Harvard, Bernstein enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia . At Curtis, Bernstein studied conducting with Fritz Reiner (who is said to have given Bernstein the only "A" grade he ever awarded); piano with Isabelle Vengerova ; orchestration with Randall Thompson ; counterpoint with Richard Stöhr ; and score reading with Renée Longy Miquelle . In 1940, Bernstein attended
1188-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from
1386-620: A Solemn Occasion with Sir Laurence Olivier narrating text from the UN Charter . The concert was televised by NBC Television Network . In April 1949, Bernstein performed as piano soloist in the world premiere of his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety with Koussevitzy conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On December 2, 1949, Bernstein conducted the world premiere of the Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie , with
1584-452: A blazing sun. The fathers and lovers begin to complain about one another, noticing all the flaws that have become glaringly visible by daylight ("This Plum Is Too Ripe"). The children try to recreate their romantic mood from the previous night and mock their fathers. Eventually, in a fit of pique, Hucklebee reveals that the kidnapping and the feud were fake. Matt and Luisa are mortified, and the fathers' mutual recrimination quickly escalates into
1782-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of
1980-592: A broad swath of the classical music canon . Bernstein welcomed the Philharmonic's additions of its first Black musician, Sanford Allen , and its second woman musician, Orin O'Brien . Bernstein also shared the Philharmonic's commitment to connecting with as many New Yorkers as possible. That vision became a reality with the launch of the Concerts in the Parks in 1965, which Bernstein conducted often. Another milestone
2178-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of
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#17327833192942376-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of
2574-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by
2772-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On
2970-538: A good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves." Many newspapers throughout the country carried the story, which, in combination with the concert's live national CBS Radio Network broadcast, propelled Bernstein to instant fame. Over the next two years, Bernstein made conducting debuts with ten different orchestras in the United States and Canada, greatly broadening his repertoire and initiating
3168-560: A ground-breaking Best Supporting Actress award for Puerto Rican-born Rita Moreno playing the role of Anita. A film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg opened in 2021. In addition to Bernstein's compositional activity for the stage, he wrote a symphonic work, Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" (1954); the score On the Waterfront (1954); and Prelude, Fugue and Riffs , composed in 1949, but only premiered in 1955, for jazz big band and solo clarinet. In 1953, Bernstein became
3366-638: A half weeks into its run. The Fantasticks has been seen in at least 67 countries, and It has been translated into many languages. A non-equity national tour, in a steampunk-inspired version, began at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center on January 17, 2014. According to The New York Times , " The Fantasticks is one of the most widely produced [musicals] in the world, with more than 11,000 productions, by 2010, in 3,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, as well as in 67 countries. The Fantasticks has been performed at The White House , for
3564-601: A harp, with the harpist also sometimes playing some percussion instruments. The opening of The Fantasticks met with mixed reviews. Four years later, in The New York Times , Schmidt and Jones recalled that Noto had kept the show running despite the criticism. The musical was awarded the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991. The production closed on January 13, 2002, after 17,162 performances. It
3762-488: A leading role; a multiracial cast dancing as mixed race couples; and a Black concertmaster, Everett Lee , who eventually took over as music director of the show. On the Town became an MGM motion picture in 1949 , starring Gene Kelly , Frank Sinatra , and Jules Munshin as the three sailors. Only part of Bernstein's score was used in the film and additional songs were provided by Roger Edens . From 1945 to 1947, Bernstein
3960-410: A legacy of audio and video recordings. Bernstein was also a critical figure in the modern revival of the music of Gustav Mahler , in whose music he was most interested. A skilled pianist, Bernstein often conducted piano concertos from the keyboard. He shared and explored classical music on television with a mass audience in national and international broadcasts, including Young People's Concerts with
4158-526: A lifelong beloved friend. Sam took his son to orchestral concerts in his teenage years and eventually supported his music education. In May 1932, Leonard attended his first orchestral concert with the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler . Bernstein recalled, "To me, in those days, the Pops was heaven itself ... I thought ... it was the supreme achievement of the human race." It
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#17327833192944356-541: A lifelong frequent practice of conducting concertos from the piano. On January 28, 1944, Bernstein conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and soloist Jennie Tourel . In the fall of 1943, Bernstein and Jerome Robbins began work on their first collaboration, Fancy Free , a ballet about three young sailors on leave in wartime New York City. Fancy Free premiered on April 18, 1944, with
4554-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at
4752-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It
4950-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from
5148-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from
5346-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond
5544-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked
5742-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of
5940-480: A performance of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor to explain that the soloist, Glenn Gould , had chosen an idiosyncratic approach to the work. Bernstein explained that while he did not totally agree with it, he thought Gould's interpretation was an artistically worthy exploration. Bernstein questioned: "In a concerto, who is the boss: the soloist or the conductor?" The incident created
6138-459: A pseudonym) as the Old Actor, among the cast members. The sparse set and semicircular stage created an intimate and immediate effect. The play is highly stylized and combines old-fashioned showmanship, classic musical theatre , commedia dell'arte and Noh theatrical traditions. The original production was directed by Word Baker and was produced on a very low budget. The producer spent $ 900 on
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6336-731: A quantum leap when, as the new music director of the New York Philharmonic, he put the orchestra's traditional Saturday afternoon Young People's Concerts on the CBS Television Network. Millions of viewers of all ages and around the world enthusiastically embraced Bernstein and his engaging presentations about classical music. Bernstein often presented talented young performers on the broadcasts. Many of them became celebrated in their own right, including conductors Claudio Abbado and Seiji Ozawa ; flutist Paula Robison ; and pianist André Watts . From 1958 until 1972,
6534-475: A real feud; they storm off to their respective houses. Matt sees El Gallo and, in a desperate attempt to regain his honor and Luisa's love, challenges him to a duel. El Gallo easily disarms Matt and leaves him embarrassed. Matt and Luisa then argue; she calls him a poseur, while he calls her childish. Matt is eager to leave the provincial town. He and El Gallo discuss his gleaming vision of adventure ("I Can See It"). Henry and Mortimer return and lead Matt off to see
6732-536: A relic of her dead mother, as a pledge that she will return. As she goes inside, El Gallo promises her a world of beauty and grandeur; at the same time, Matt approaches, giving a contrasting version of the cruel experiences that one can suffer ("I Can See It" (reprise)). As Luisa disappears, El Gallo turns to leave, the injured Matt makes a pitiful attempt to stop him from hurting Luisa, but El Gallo knocks him away and disappears. Luisa returns to find that El Gallo has left with her necklace, and she sits in tears. El Gallo, as
6930-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances
7128-552: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with
7326-467: A second opera, A Quiet Place , which picked up the story and characters of Trouble in Tahiti in a later period. Wonderful Town (1953) In 1953, Bernstein wrote the score for the musical Wonderful Town on very short notice, with a book by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green . Like the 1940 play, directed on Broadway by George S. Kaufman , it
7524-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during
7722-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting
7920-470: A small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks , and Ernest in Love , a musicalization of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . The musical
8118-590: A staple of regional, community and high school productions since its premiere, with approximately 250 new productions each year. It is played with a small cast, two- to three-person orchestra and minimalist set design. The show was revived off-Broadway from 2006 to 2017. As of 2010, its original investors had earned 240 times their original investments. The musical has played in all 50 US states and in at least 67 foreign countries. The 1954 Marc Blitzstein adaptation of The Threepenny Opera , which ran for six years, showed that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in
The Fantasticks - Misplaced Pages Continue
8316-475: A stir that reverberated in the press for decades; see New York Philharmonic concert of April 6, 1962 § Legacy . In 1960, Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic marked the centennial of Gustav Mahler's birth with a series of performances. The composer's widow, Alma , attended some of Bernstein's rehearsals. That same year, Bernstein made his first commercial recording of a Mahler symphony (the Fourth) . Over
8514-738: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on
8712-436: A total of 42 years (until 2002) and 17,162 performances, making it the world's longest-running musical. The musical was produced by Lore Noto . It was awarded Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991. The poetic book and breezy, inventive score, including such memorable songs as " Try to Remember ", helped make the show durable. Many productions followed, as well as television and film versions. The Fantasticks has become
8910-420: A turning point in musical theatre. In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story , which continues to be popular with orchestras worldwide. A 1961 United Artists film adaptation , directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood as Maria and Richard Beymer as Tony. The film won ten Academy Awards , including Best Picture and
9108-425: A unifying theme to the play. Thornton Wilder 's Our Town gave Jones the idea of using a narrator, the staging of Carlo Goldoni 's Servant of Two Masters provided the concept of having actors sit stage-side when not acting, and John Houseman 's production of The Winter's Tale and Leonard Bernstein 's Candide suggested the use of sun, moon, frozen action, and incidental music. The song "Try to Remember"
9306-549: Is an updated retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , set in the mid-1950s in the slums of New York City's Upper West Side . The Romeo character, Tony, is affiliated with the Jets gang, who are of white Northern European descent. The Juliet character is Maria, who is connected to the Sharks gang, recently arrived from Puerto Rico . The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, and ran 732 performances. Robbins won
9504-538: Is based loosely on The Romancers ( Les Romanesques ) by Edmond Rostand , which draws elements from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe , Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream , and Donizetti 's L'elisir d'amore . Jones, together with John Donald Robb of the University of New Mexico , first adapted the Rostand play as a Western titled Joy Comes to Deadhorse . The play premiered at
9702-524: Is based on the autobiographical short stories, collectively titled My Sister Eileen , that were written by Ruth McKenney and published in the early 1930s by The New Yorker . They tell the story of two sisters from Ohio who move to New York City and seek success from their squalid basement apartment in Greenwich Village . Wonderful Town opened on Broadway on February 25, 1953, at the Winter Garden Theatre , starring Rosalind Russell in
9900-502: Is dated 1935. He majored in music with a final year thesis titled "The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music" (1939; reproduced in his book Findings ). One of Bernstein's intellectual influences at Harvard was the aesthetics Professor David Prall , whose multidisciplinary outlook on the arts inspired Bernstein for the rest of his life. One of Bernstein's friends at Harvard was future philosopher Donald Davidson , with whom Bernstein played piano duets. Bernstein wrote and conducted
10098-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in
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#173278331929410296-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only
10494-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of
10692-706: Is the world's longest-running musical and the longest-running uninterrupted show of any kind in the United States. Other notable actors who appeared in the off-Broadway and touring production throughout its long run included Liza Minnelli , Elliott Gould , F. Murray Abraham , Glenn Close , Keith Charles , Carole Demas , Kristin Chenoweth , Bert Convy , Eileen Fulton , Lore Noto (the show's longtime producer), Dick Latessa , and Martin Vidnovic . The musical ran at London's Apollo Theatre from September 7, 1961, and ran for 44 performances. In 1990, another production
10890-637: The Ballet Theatre (now the American Ballet Theatre) at the old Metropolitan Opera House , with scenery by Oliver Smith and costumes by Kermit Love . Bernstein and Robbins decided to expand the ballet into a musical and invited Comden and Green to write the book and lyrics. On the Town opened on Broadway's Adelphi Theatre on December 28, 1944. The show resonated with audiences during World War II , and it broke race barriers on Broadway: Japanese-American dancer Sono Osato in
11088-636: The Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the piano. Bernstein's works include the Broadway musical West Side Story , which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two ( 1961 and 2021 ) feature films, three symphonies, Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" (1954), and Chichester Psalms (1965),
11286-746: The NBC Symphony Orchestra , one of which featured Bernstein as soloist in Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major. In 1947, Bernstein conducted in Tel Aviv for the first time, beginning a lifelong association with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra , then known as the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. The next year, he conducted an open-air concert for Israeli troops at Beersheba in the middle of
11484-1053: The New England Conservatory . Two years later, he made his solo debut with orchestra in Grieg 's Piano Concerto in A minor with the Boston Public School Orchestra. Bernstein's first two education environments were both public schools: the William Lloyd Garrison School , followed by the prestigious Boston Latin School , for which Bernstein and classmate Lawrence F. Ebb wrote the Class Song. Harvard University In 1935, Bernstein enrolled at Harvard College , where he studied music with, among others, Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston . Bernstein's first extant composition, Psalm 148 , set for voice and piano,
11682-1061: The Peace Corps in Africa, at the Shawnee Methodist Mission in Kansas , the Menninger Foundation , Yellowstone National Park and the White Sands Missile Range . It was performed in Mandarin by the Peking Opera , and in 1990 under the auspices of the United States State Department it played for the first time in Russia. Famous actors, other than those listed above, who have performed in productions of
11880-752: The Philharmonia Orchestra . On July 4, 1946, Bernstein conducted the European premiere of Fancy Free with the Ballet Theatre at the Royal Opera House in London. On August 6 he conducted opera professionally for the first time, with the American premiere of Benjamin Britten 's Peter Grimes at Tanglewood, commissioned by Koussevitzky. That same year, Arturo Toscanini invited Bernstein to guest conduct two concerts with
12078-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music
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#173278331929412276-655: The Six-Day War . The sequence of events was recorded for a documentary entitled Journey to Jerusalem . At the end of his life, Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall . Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts , to Russian Jewish / Ukrainian Jewish parents, Jennie (née Resnick) and Samuel Joseph Bernstein, both of whom immigrated to
12474-618: The Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked
12672-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in
12870-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over
13068-472: The "Drunken rape", etc. However, as women’s rights advocates began drawing attention to rape and sexual assault in the US during the play's long run, many audience members objected to the repeated use of the word, arguing that it minimizes the damage to women and families caused by sexual crimes. To deal with changing audience perceptions, the musical's book is usually edited to replace the word "rape", in most instances, with alternatives such as "abduction" and
13266-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives
13464-622: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed
13662-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within
13860-560: The 1940–41 season to be his assistant, but the plan fell through because of union issues. In 1937, Bernstein sat next to Aaron Copland at a dance recital at Town Hall in New York City. Copland invited Bernstein to his birthday party afterwards, where Bernstein impressed the guests by playing Copland's challenging Piano Variations , a work Bernstein loved. Although he was never a formal student of Copland's, Bernstein regularly sought his advice, often citing him as his "only real composition teacher". Bernstein graduated from Harvard in 1939 with
14058-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by
14256-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in
14454-541: The 53 Young People's Concerts comprised the most influential series of music education programs ever produced on television. They were highly acclaimed by critics and won numerous Emmy Awards . Some of Bernstein's scripts, all of which he wrote himself, were released in book form and on records. A recording of Humor in Music was awarded a Grammy award for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (other than comedy) in 1961. The programs were shown in many countries around
14652-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during
14850-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to
15048-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create
15246-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and
15444-463: The Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York premiere in Carnegie Hall on the afternoon of December 10. Part of the rehearsal for the concert was recorded and released by the orchestra. When Koussevitzky died in 1951, Bernstein became head of the orchestra and conducting departments at Tanglewood . The 1950s comprised the most active years of Bernstein's career. He created five new works for
15642-625: The Broadway stage, composed several symphonic works and an iconic film score, and was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic with whom he toured the world, including concerts behind the Iron Curtain. Bernstein also harnessed the power of television to expand his educational reach, and he married and started a family. In 1950, Bernstein composed incidental music for a Broadway production of J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan . The production, which opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950, starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff in
15840-739: The Department of State also sponsored Bernstein and the Philharmonic on a 50-concert tour through Europe and the Soviet Union, portions of which were filmed by the CBS Television Network. A highlight of the tour was Bernstein's performance of Shostakovich 's Fifth Symphony , in the presence of the composer, who came on stage at the end to congratulate Bernstein and the musicians. New York Philharmonic Innovations Bernstein's innovative approach to themed programming included introducing audiences to composers less-performed at
16038-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In
16236-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of
16434-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on
16632-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of
16830-504: The New York Philharmonic Bernstein was appointed the music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1957, sharing the post jointly with Dimitri Mitropoulos until he took sole charge in 1958. Bernstein held the music directorship until 1969 when he was appointed "Laureate Conductor". He continued to conduct and make recordings with the orchestra for the rest of his life. Bernstein's television teaching took
17028-403: The New York Philharmonic, Bernstein made his major conducting debut at short notice—and without any rehearsal—after guest conductor Bruno Walter came down with the flu. The challenging program included works by Robert Schumann , Miklós Rózsa , Richard Wagner , and Richard Strauss . The next day, The New York Times carried the story on its front page and remarked in an editorial, "It's
17226-551: The New York Philharmonic. Bernstein worked in support of civil rights , protested against the Vietnam War , advocated nuclear disarmament, raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness, and engaged in multiple international initiatives for human rights and world peace. He conducted Mahler's Resurrection Symphony to mark the death of president John F. Kennedy , and in Israel at a concert, Hatikvah on Mt. Scopus , after
17424-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from
17622-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During
17820-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from
18018-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from
18216-548: The United States from Rivne , Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis , but his parents always called him Leonard . Bernstein legally changed his name from Louis to Leonard when he was 16. To his friends and many others, Bernstein was simply known as "Lenny". Bernstein's mother had moved to stay with her parents in Lawrence toward the end of her first pregnancy and, since he
18414-414: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of
18612-546: The University of New Mexico in the spring of 1956. It was set in the American West , and featured a "half-breed Apache " as the show's antagonist. Jones was not happy with this instantiation and subsequently teamed with Schmidt. The script was substantially rewritten by Jones and Schmidt, with the character of Mortimer now "not really an Indian" but playing one during the "Rape Ballet" sequence. The Wild West setting
18810-486: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in
19008-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as
19206-660: The center of the city. On December 10, 1949, Bernstein made his first television appearance as conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall . The concert, which included an address by Eleanor Roosevelt , celebrated the first anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly 's ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , and included the premiere of Aaron Copland 's Preamble for
19404-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that
19602-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to
19800-578: The composer: "I'm so sympathetic to Mahler: I understand his problem. It's like being two different men locked up in the same body; one man is a conductor and the other a composer ... It's like being a double man." Opening Lincoln Center On May 14, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts . On September 23, 1962, the New York Philharmonic moved from Carnegie Hall to its new home, Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall ). Bernstein conducted
19998-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by
20196-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by
20394-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held
20592-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved
20790-765: The desert during the Arab-Israeli war . In 1957, he conducted the inaugural concert of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. In 1967, he conducted a concert on Mount Scopus to commemorate the Reunification of Jerusalem , featuring Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with soloist Isaac Stern . The city of Tel Aviv added his name to the Habima Square (Orchestra Plaza) in
20988-576: The dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook . The show ran for 321 performances. In 1951, Bernstein composed Trouble in Tahiti , a one-act opera in seven scenes with an English libretto by the composer. The opera portrays the troubled marriage of a couple whose idyllic suburban post-war environment belies their inner turmoil. Ironically, Bernstein wrote most of the opera while on his honeymoon in Mexico with his wife, Felicia Montealegre . Bernstein
21186-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as
21384-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and
21582-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict
21780-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down
21978-467: The fathers a menu of different varieties of " rape " – in the literary sense of an abduction or kidnapping – that he can simulate ("It Depends on What You Pay"). Deciding to spare no expense for their beloved children (within reason), the fathers agree to a "first class" abduction scene. A disheveled old actor with a failing memory, Henry Albertson, arrives with his sidekick, Mortimer, a Cockney dressed as an American Indian. El Gallo engages them to help with
22176-669: The fathers, Edward Petherbridge as the Old Actor, Paul Hunter as Henry and Carl Au as the mime. The production received mixed to poor reviews: Michael Billington wrote in the Guardian , "the time for this kind of faux-naïf, sub Commedia dell'Arte diversion has passed", while Paul Tayolr, in The Independent , felt that, while "ingratiating [and overly long,] as an open-hearted antidote to soulless, big-budget hi-tech, The Fantasticks continues to prove that small can be quite fetching". The production closed on June 26, 2010, two and
22374-500: The first American conductor to appear at La Scala in Milan, conducting Cherubini's Medea , with Maria Callas in the title role. Callas and Bernstein reunited at La Scala to perform Bellini's La sonnambula in 1955. On November 14, 1954, Bernstein presented the first of his television lectures for the CBS Television Network arts program Omnibus . The live lecture, entitled "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony", involved Bernstein explaining
22572-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite
22770-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need
22968-554: The gala opening concert featuring works by Mahler , Beethoven , and Vaughan Williams , as well as the premiere of Aaron Copland's Connotations . In 1964, Bernstein conducted at the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in Franco Zeffirelli 's production of Verdi's Falstaff . In subsequent years, Bernstein returned to The Met to conduct Cavalleria rusticana (1970) and Carmen (1972), as well as at
23166-424: The globe, including works by Dmitri Shostakovich , Pierre Boulez , and György Ligeti . Bernstein championed American composers, especially those with whom he had a close friendship, such as Aaron Copland , William Schuman , and David Diamond . This decade saw a significant expansion of Bernstein and the Philharmonic's collaboration with Columbia Records , together they released over 400 compositions, covering
23364-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in
23562-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of
23760-695: The inaugural year of the Tanglewood Music Center (then called the Berkshire Music Center) at the Boston Symphony Orchestra 's summer home. Bernstein studied conducting with the BSO's music director, Serge Koussevitzky , who became a profound lifelong inspiration to Bernstein. He became Koussevitzky's conducting assistant at Tanglewood and later dedicated his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety to his beloved mentor. One of Bernstein's classmates, both at Curtis and at Tanglewood,
23958-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about
24156-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on
24354-531: The legendary jazz club the Village Vanguard . On April 21, 1942, Bernstein performed the premiere of his first published work, Sonata for Clarinet and Piano , with clarinetist David Glazer at the Institute of Modern Art in Boston. Bernstein would later make his New York Philharmonic conducting debut. On November 14, 1943, having recently been appointed assistant conductor to Artur Rodziński of
24552-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,
24750-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming
24948-484: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,
25146-819: The most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to
25344-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of
25542-518: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see
25740-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as
25938-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:
26136-511: The musical score for the production Davidson mounted of Aristophanes ' play The Birds , performed in the original Greek. Bernstein recycled some of this music in future works. While a student, Bernstein was briefly an accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club as well as an unpaid pianist for Harvard Film Society's silent film presentations. Bernstein mounted a student production of The Cradle Will Rock , directing its action from
26334-420: The narrator, explains poetically that he had to hurt Matt and Luisa, and also himself in the process. Matt comforts Luisa, and he tells her a little about his experiences, and the two realize that everything they wanted was each other ("They Were You"; "Metaphor" (reprise)), but that they now understand that more deeply. The Fathers return joyfully and are about to tear down the wall, when El Gallo reminds them that
26532-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:
26730-706: The neighborhood children to put on shows ranging from Bizet's Carmen to Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore . He would often play entire operas or Beethoven symphonies with his younger sister, Shirley. Leonard's youngest sibling, Burton, was born in 1932, 13 years after Leonard. Despite the large age differences, the three siblings remained close their entire lives. Sam was initially opposed to young Leonard's interest in music and attempted to discourage his son's interest by refusing to pay for his piano lessons. Leonard then took to giving lessons to young people in his neighborhood. One of his students, Sid Ramin , became Bernstein's orchestrator for West Side Story and
26928-556: The next seven years, he recorded the entire Mahler symphony cycle with the New York Philharmonic (except for the 8th Symphony , which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra ). The combination of concert performances, television talks, and recordings led to a renewed interest in Mahler, especially in the United States. Bernstein claimed that he identified with the works on a personal level, and once wrote of
27126-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as
27324-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan
27522-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act
27720-538: The original score for the Elia Kazan drama film On the Waterfront (1954), and theater works including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), and his Mass (1971). Bernstein was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra. He was music director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted the world's major orchestras, generating
27918-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of
28116-444: The piano as the composer Marc Blitzstein had done at the infamous premiere. Blitzstein, who attended the performance, subsequently became a close friend and mentor to Bernstein. As a sophomore at Harvard, Bernstein met the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos . Mitropoulos's charisma and power as a musician were major influences on Bernstein's eventual decision to become a conductor. Mitropoulos invited Bernstein to come to Minneapolis for
28314-625: The piano for dance classes in Carnegie Hall . He found work with Harms-Witmark, transcribing jazz and pop music and publishing his work under the pseudonym "Lenny Amber". ( Bernstein means " amber " in German.) Bernstein briefly shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with his friend Adolph Green . Green was then part of a satirical music troupe called The Revuers, featuring Betty Comden and Judy Holliday . With Bernstein sometimes providing piano accompaniment, The Revuers often performed at
28512-496: The production was a box office disaster, running for only two months for a total of 73 performances, the cast album became a cult classic, which kept Bernstein's score alive. There have been several revivals, with modifications to improve the book. The elements of the music that have remained best known and performed over the decades are the Overture, which quickly became one of the most frequently performed orchestral compositions by
28710-705: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards
28908-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help
29106-560: The role of Ruth Sherwood, Edie Adams as Eileen Sherwood, and George Gaynes as Robert Baker. It won five Tony Awards , including Best Musical and Best Actress. Candide (1956) In the three years leading up to Bernstein's appointment as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein was simultaneously working on the scores for two Broadway shows. The first of the two was the operetta -style musical Candide . Lillian Hellman originally brought Bernstein her idea of adapting Voltaire 's novella . The original collaborators on
29304-481: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( / ˈ b ɜːr n s t aɪ n / BURN -styne ; born Louis Bernstein ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he
29502-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed
29700-412: The set and $ 541 on costumes, at a time when major Broadway shows would cost $ 250,000. The original set designer, costumer, prop master, and lighting designer was Ed Wittstein, who performed all four jobs for a total of only $ 480 plus $ 24.48 a week. The set was similar to that for Our Town ; Wittstein designed a raised stationary platform anchored by six poles. It resembled a traveling players' wagon, like
29898-473: The show include David Canary , Robert Goulet , Richard Chamberlain , John Carradine and Ed Ames . In 2022, Flint Repertory Theatre in Flint , Michigan, premiered a sex-changed version adapted by Jones and director Michael Lluberes that included LGBT themes; among other things, it changed the female lead, Luisa, to a male character, Lewis, and the fathers became mother characters. An abbreviated version of
30096-508: The show was broadcast by the Hallmark Hall of Fame on October 18, 1964. The cast included John Davidson , Stanley Holloway , Bert Lahr , Ricardo Montalbán and Susan Watson , who had appeared in the original Barnard College production. The roles of the old actor and Mortimer were cut for time, and some of their lines were assigned to the fathers, who indulged in some "amateur theatrics". A feature film directed by Michael Ritchie
30294-638: The show were book writer John Latouche and lyricist Richard Wilbur . Candide opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956, at the Martin Beck Theatre , in a production directed by Tyrone Guthrie . Anxious about the parallels Hellman had deliberately drawn between Voltaire's story and the ongoing hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee , Guthrie persuaded the collaborators to cut their most incendiary sections prior to opening night. While
30492-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this
30690-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in
30888-479: The show. MTI (Music Theater International), which licenses the show, offers "Abductions" as an alternative choice. Musical theatre Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and
31086-512: The similar-sounding "raid". In 1990, Jones and Schmidt wrote an optional replacement piece called "Abductions", which uses the music of the "Rape Ballet", although this song did not replace "It Depends on What You Pay" at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, where, with the edits made in the book, audiences accepted the song. An edited version of "It Depends on What You Pay" was used in the long-running Jerry Orbach Theater version of
31284-423: The stage properties used in the "abduction" and wonders aloud how long the lovers and their fathers will be able to maintain their elaborately joyful poses. He and The Mute leave. The children and fathers are discovered in the same poses but are visibly exhausted by the effort. El Gallo observes that what seemed romantic by moonlight may lose its charm when exposed to the harsh light of day. He exchanges his moon for
31482-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At
31680-415: The staged kidnapping. Matt and Luisa return to speak of their love and hint at physical intimacy (" Soon It's Gonna Rain "). El Gallo and the actors burst in and carry out the moonlit abduction scenario; Matt "defeats" the three ("Rape Ballet"). The feud is ended and the wall between the houses torn down, with the children and the fathers joined in a picturesque final tableau ("Happy Ending"). El Gallo collects
31878-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with
32076-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer
32274-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in
32472-547: The symphony's first movement with the aid of musicians from the "Symphony of the Air" (formerly NBC Symphony Orchestra ). The program featured manuscripts from Beethoven's own hand, as well as a giant painting of the first page of the score covering the studio floor. Six more Omnibus lectures followed from 1955 to 1961 (later on ABC and then NBC) covering a broad range of topics: jazz, conducting, American musical comedy, modern music, J. S. Bach , and grand opera . Music director of
32670-514: The telltale signs of age and yield a diversion that feels fresh and alive again". The Fantasticks played briefly in London's West End at the Duchess Theatre , opening on June 9, 2010, following previews from May 24, 2010. The production was directed by Amon Miyamoto , designed by Rumi Matsui with lighting by Rick Fisher , and starred Hadley Fraser as El Gallo, Lorna Want as Luisa, Luke Brady as Matt, Clive Rowe and David Burt as
32868-439: The time such as Gustav Mahler , Carl Nielsen , Jean Sibelius , and Charles Ives (including the world premiere of his Symphony No. 2 ). Bernstein actively advocated for the commission and performance of works by contemporary composers, conducting over 40 world premieres by a diverse roster of composers ranging from John Cage to Alberto Ginastera to Luciano Berio . He also conducted US premieres of 19 major works from around
33066-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away
33264-420: The two old friends boast about their cleverness in pretending to feud as a means to ensure that their children fall in love. They note that to manipulate children you need merely to say "no" ("Never Say No"). Hucklebee tells Bellomy of his plan to end the feud by having Luisa "kidnapped" by a professional abductor so that Matt can "rescue" her and appear heroic. The hired professional, El Gallo, appears and offers
33462-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in
33660-405: The wall must always remain ("Try to Remember" (reprise)). After the initial success of the musical, The Fantasticks came under criticism for the repeated use of the word "rape" in the scene preceding the song "It Depends on What You Pay" and in the lyrics of the song. In the original production, when El Gallo offers to stage the phony kidnapping of Luisa, he refers to the proposed event as
33858-509: The wall to her in a mock literary/heroic way ("Metaphor"). Matt and Luisa climb to the top of the wall and speak secretly of Luisa's romantic vision of Matt saving her from kidnapping. Matt's father, Mr. Hucklebee, then appears and tells about his philosophy of life and gardening (don't over-water). He orders Matt to go inside the house. Luisa's father, Mr. Bellomy, arrives and gives a contrasting philosophy of life and gardening (plenty of water). He orders Luisa inside. He then calls to Hucklebee, and
34056-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it
34254-504: The works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of
34452-474: The world, often with Bernstein dubbed into other languages, and the concerts were later released on home video by Kultur Video . In 1958, Bernstein and Mitropoulos led the New York Philharmonic on its first tour south of the border, through 12 countries in Central and South America. The United States Department of State sponsored the tour to improve the nation's relations with its southern neighbors. In 1959,
34650-470: The world. A month passes, and the fathers have rebuilt the wall. They meet and speak sadly of their children; Luisa is like a statue and does nothing but sit and dream; Matt still hasn't returned. They then sing about the uncertainties of raising children, as compared with the reliability of vegetable gardening ("Plant a Radish"). Luisa sees El Gallo watching her and is intrigued by the handsome, experienced bandit. Impulsively, she asks him to take her away to see
34848-489: The world. In a long fantasy sequence, they preview a series of romantic adventures through a mask of unreality, while in the background Matt is being abused and beaten by Henry and Mortimer portraying a series of unpleasant exotic employers. Luisa's fantasies become increasingly frenzied, exhausting and darkly underscored ("Round and Round"). El Gallo tells Luisa to pack her things for the journey, but before she goes inside to do so, he asks her to give him her treasured necklace,
35046-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from
35244-501: Was Lukas Foss , who remained a lifelong friend and colleague. Bernstein returned to Tanglewood nearly every summer for the rest of his life to teach and conduct the young music students. Bernstein received a diploma in conducting from Curtis in 1941. Soon after he left Curtis, Bernstein moved to New York City where he lived in various apartments in Manhattan . Bernstein supported himself by coaching singers, teaching piano, and playing
35442-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided
35640-693: Was a visiting music professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1956. In 1952, he created the Brandeis Festival of the Creative Arts , where he conducted the premiere of Trouble in Tahiti on June 12 of that year. The NBC Opera Theatre subsequently presented the opera on television in November 1952. It opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre on April 19, 1955, and ran for six weeks. Three decades later, Bernstein wrote
35838-419: Was abandoned, as was most of the script. All but a few songs in the score were also jettisoned, and the staging of the play was changed to a thrust stage . Tom Jones says that the name of the play came from George Fleming 's 1900 adaptation of the Rostand play, which used the name The Fantasticks . Harley Granville-Barker 's book, On Dramatic Method , provided the idea of using a series of images to help weave
36036-614: Was added at this time. Harvey Schmidt says he wrote it in a single afternoon, after it emerged in almost complete form after a fruitless afternoon attempting to compose other songs. The revamped play appeared on a bill of new one-act plays at Barnard College for one week in August 1959. The Fantasticks premiered at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, a small off-Broadway theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village , on May 3, 1960, with Jerry Orbach as El Gallo, Rita Gardner as Luisa, Kenneth Nelson as Matt, and librettist Tom Jones (under
36234-405: Was an ember about to billow" (" Try to Remember "). He begins to narrate the plot of the play. Two young people, Matt and Luisa, live next door to each other and fall in love. However, their fathers are feuding and order them not to speak to each other. Luisa fantasizes about the experiences she wants to have in her life ("Much More"). Matt then delivers a speech about his love for Luisa, calling over
36432-585: Was at this concert that Bernstein first heard Ravel's Boléro , which made a tremendous impression on him. Another strong musical influence was George Gershwin . Bernstein was working as a music counselor at a summer camp when news came of Gershwin's death. Bernstein interrupted lunch in the mess hall, and then played Gershwin's second Prelude as a memorial. On March 30, 1932, Bernstein played Brahms 's Rhapsody in G minor at his first public piano performance in Susan Williams's studio recital at
36630-430: Was completed in 1995 but not released until 2000. It starred Joel Grey , Brad Sullivan , Jean Louisa Kelly , Barnard Hughes , Jonathon Morris and Joey McIntyre and included some changes to the book. It was both a critical and box office failure. Two houses are separated by a wall (portrayed by a mute actor) in an unspecified American town. A mysterious bandit, El Gallo, tells about the kind of September "when love
36828-454: Was directed by lyricist Jones, who also appeared in the role of Henry, The Old Actor, under the stage name Thomas Bruce. The original cast of the revival also included Burke Moses (El Gallo), Leo Burmester (Hucklebee), Martin Vidnovic (Bellomy), Santino Fontana (Matt), Sara Jean Ford (Luisa), Robert R. Oliver (Mortimer), and Douglas Ullman, Jr. (the Mute). A cast recording of this production
37026-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting
37224-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and
37422-474: Was given in London's Regent's Park at the Open Air Theatre there. It toured in Vietnam in 1969–70, presented by the Command Military Touring Shows, a unit of Army Special Entertainment branch of the US Army Special Services. The company was made up of military personnel. On August 23, 2006, a revival of The Fantasticks opened at the off-Broadway The Theater Center , New York City where it closed on June 4, 2017 after an additional run of 4,390 performances. It
37620-452: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing
37818-400: Was released by Ghostlight Records . Anthony Fedorov played the role of Matt in 2007. Margaret Anne Florence played Luisa in 2008. Lewis Cleale played El Gallo between 2008 and 2010. Jones left the cast in 2010, after the musical had celebrated its 50th anniversary. Pop star Aaron Carter joined the cast as Matt in 2011. In memory of the original El Gallo, the theatre hosting the revival
38016-419: Was renamed the Jerry Orbach Theater . The musical was presented by the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. from November 20, 2009, to January 10, 2010, at the Lincoln Theatre . The well-received production replaced the conventional "mysterious bandit" interpretation of El Gallo with a kindly carnival magician character. Washington Post theatre critic Peter Marks wrote, "they have been reconditioned to conceal
38214-494: Was sickly as an infant, he stayed there until he was strong enough to join his father in Boston , where he eventually attended the Boston Latin School . When he was 15, the family moved to nearby Newton, Massachusetts . Bernstein's father was the owner of the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company. It held the exclusive distribution rights for the Frederick's Permanent Wave Machine in the 1920s and 1930s, which made Samuel wealthy. In Bernstein's early youth, his only exposure to music
38412-425: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise
38610-478: Was the Philharmonic's first visit to Japan in 1961, when Bernstein led acclaimed Philharmonic concerts and engaged in cultural exchange. Over the years, he led the Orchestra on tours to 144 cities in 38 countries. Bernstein initiated the Philharmonic's informal Thursday Evening Preview Concerts, which included Bernstein's talks from the stage, a practice that was unheard of at the time. In one oft-reported incident, on April 6, 1962, Bernstein appeared on stage before
38808-422: Was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan . Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards , two Tony Awards , and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award ) as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received
39006-501: Was the household radio and music on Friday nights at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Roxbury , Massachusetts. When Bernstein was ten years old, Samuel's sister Clara deposited her upright piano at her brother's house. Bernstein asked for lessons, and subsequently had a variety of piano teachers in his youth, including Helen Coates, who later became his secretary. In the summers, the Bernstein family would go to their vacation home in Sharon, Massachusetts , where young Leonard conscripted all
39204-457: Was the music director of the New York City Symphony, which had been founded the previous year by the conductor Leopold Stokowski . The orchestra (with support from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia) had modern programs and affordable tickets. In 1946, Bernstein made his overseas debut with the Czech Philharmonic at the inaugural Prague Spring International Music Festival . He also recorded Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major as soloist and conductor with
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