Cooperstown It Breaks Your Heart

Cooperstown

It breaks your heart

MUSIC BY

Sasha Matson

LIBRETTO BY

Mark Miller & Sasha Matson

CONTACT: 607-434-3504 • [email protected]

Julie Adams • Daniel Favela • Carin Gilfry
Rod Gilfry • Daniel Montenegro

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Gernot Bernroider - Drums Russ Johnson - Trumpets
Rich Mollin - Bass
Jason Rigby - Saxophones
Sean Wayland - Piano, Hammond C3, Fender Rhodes

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Conducted by Sasha Matson

MUSIC BY

LIBRETTO BY

Sasha Matson

Mark Miller and Sasha Matson

PRODUCED BY

DIRECTED BY

John Atkinson

Stephanie Vlahos

BAND SESSIONS RECORDED AT

Systems Two Recording, Brooklyn, New York
June 16-17, 2011

ENGINEERED BY

Mike Marciano

VOCAL SESSIONS RECORDED AT

Schnee Studio, Studio City, California
September 1-2, 2012

ENGINEERED BY

Bill Schnee and Kenton Fukuda

PRO TOOLS EDITING BY

Justin Volpe

MIXED BY

Mike Marciano at Systems Two Recording

MUSIC PREPARATION BY

Jonathan B. Griffiths and the Terry Woodson Music Service

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Wes Bender ( Band ) and Joseph D’Allessio ( Vocal )

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THE STORY

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NOTES

“COOPERSTOWN OR BUST!” is chalked on many vans that pull up every summer in front of our house across the lawn from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It is a long and winding road trip to Cooperstown, and the recording process was that way as well. But what a trip! Such great talent here to hear, on both sides of the microphones. Rod Gilfry! John Atkinson! I have been honored by their enthusiastic support and participation. I have been to the Show.
“It breaks your heart.” That was the poetic language A. Bartlett Giamatti used in his beautiful essay “The Green Fields of the Mind”, and I am pleased that the Giamatti estate gave us permission to use his text. I began to work backward from there in the fall of 2000.
Whose heart? And how was it broken? In Giamatti’s thinking, baseball is a game but also an art form, with the capacity to express the deepest emotional truths about individuals and society. One has only to pick up the sports pages to see this dynamic acted out against the economic and cultural realities of our time.
Baseball has its own specific historical musical attributes. One of them is the sound of the stadium organ. That sound led me quickly to scoring the music for a “Miles” jazz quintet. This particular grouping of instruments is as capable as any large orchestra of realizing music in all its potential variety. The musical materials boil down to the rising three-chord “Charge” fanfare still heard in stadiums everywhere, which can be turned to the dark side by becoming an altered dominant harmony.
Early on in the work process I had a sonic picture in my ear of what a finished recording of
“Cooperstown” might sound like. I used as a model the great Blue Note stereo recordings of the late 50’s and early 60’s by Rudy Van Gelder: trumpet hard left, saxophone hard right, then added a vocal cast of five. I have nothing on my shelf that sounds quite like it.
“Cooperstown” brings together forms and techniques from jazz, opera, musical theater and baseball itself, to tell a uniquely American story in a new and different way.

— Sasha Matson

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Particular Thanks To: John Atkinson – for calling the plays and marking the scorecard. Mrs. Edward T. Chase – for support of the premiere. Ted Chapin at Rogers & Hammerstein – for cheerleading. Art Dudley – for match-making. Jeff Idelson and the team at the Hall of Fame – for support of the premiere. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. – for the detailed notes before, and the dinner after. Ian Krouse at UCLA – for the use of his office piano one summer. Mike Marciano and Bill Schnee – for protecting the plate. Mark Miller – for friendship and work above and beyond. Luis Torres – for the translation. Van Dyke Parks – for match-making. Stephanie Vlahos – for weathering the e-mail storms.

Sasha Matson spent his formative years in

Berkeley, California, where his father taught philosophy at the University of California. He received a Bachelors Degree in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Moving to Los Angeles, he scored music for a dozen motion pictures and received a Doctorate Degree in Composition and Theory from UCLA. Recordings of his work have been released on the AudioQuest and New Albion labels. Audiophile Producer Joe Harley has called Sasha “The world’s

SASHA MATSON AND PRODUCER JOHN ATKINSON, SYSTEMS TWO RECORDING, BROOKLYN, NY. JUNE, 2011

most unpredictable composer.” He currently resides in Cooperstown with his family.

Mark Miller earned a history degree at

Stanford and began a journalism career as a Reuters reporter in San Francisco. At 20th Century-Fox he produced and wrote for director-choreographer Bob Fosse, and co-wrote the screenplay for the Universal feature film “Mr. Baseball.” He has written 40 books and articles for the National Geographic Society, and was a Los Angeles-based

columnist for the San Francisco

Examiner. He is currently a writerproducer for CBS Radio, recently nominated along with CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley

S.M. WITH MIKE MARCIANO AT SYSTEMS TWO RECORDING.

for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Television and Radio Writing. He lives with his wife in Los Angeles.

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Stephanie Vlahos comes to the directing profession

with the experience of a former professional singer. A graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, Stephanie has worked in solo performance in diverging musical arenas. A recipient of the Chanel Diva Award, she is currently Artistic Director for OPERA POSSE, and is a theatre coach and stage director for the Domingo-Thornton Young Artists Program at LA Opera, as well as Director-inResidence at The Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach.

Producer John Atkinson has been editor in chief of Stereophile magazine since 1986. Formally educated in the sciences, with an honors degree in physics and chemistry and a postgraduate qualification in the teaching of high-school science, his passion was always for music. A musician (primarily on bass guitar, but also on recorder, clarinet, violin, and viola da gamba), a sound recordist, and an audiophile, Atkinson pursued all three areas simultaneously in the 1960s and ’70s, before finally settling down in magazine publishing in 1976, when he

joined the UK’s Hi-Fi News & Record

Review. He has produced, engineered, mastered or played instruments on more than 40 commercially released LPs and CDs since 1972.

Cooperstown was first performed at

the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Grandstand Theatre on May 19, 2007. Music Direction by Charles Schneider. Directed by Patrick Calleo.

Cooperstown is dedicated to the memory of Marvin Galbraith Barrett. All text excerpts public domain, except excerpt from the essay “The Green Fields of the Mind” by A. Bartlett Giamatti, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Publisher. Used by permission.

The painting “Fastball” by Josephine Coniglio (oil on canvas, 2003, 12 x 12 inches) is used by permission of the artist.

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Daniel Montenegro (“Angel Corazon”)
Daniel Favela (“Marvin Wilder”)

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Sean Wayland — Piano, Hammond C3 and Fender Rhodes

Carin Gilfry (“Jan Green”)

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Rod Gilfry (“Dutch Schulhaus
Russ Johnson - Trumpets

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Julie Adams (“Lilly Young”)
Bill Schnee, Sasha Matson, John Atkinson and Stephanie Vlahos

Schnee Studio, Studio City

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Jason Rigby - Saxophones
Rod Gilfry and Carin Gilfry

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Gernot Bernroider - Drums
Rich Mollin - Bass

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Disc One
ACT I

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Chart 1

2:18

7:40

First Inning (Dutch / Angel / Marvin)

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Chart 2

1:14

4

Second Inning (Lilly / Jan / Angel / Marvin)

10:03

1:25

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Chart 3

6

Third Inning (Jan / Dutch / Angel / Marvin)

8:38

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Chart 4

1:25

8

Fourth Inning (Lilly / Jan / Angel)

12:08

1:19

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Chart 5

10

Fifth Inning (Marvin / Jan)

7:41

T.T.

53:51

Disc Two
ACT II

12345678

Chart 6

2:02

7:54

Sixth Inning (Dutch / Marvin / Angel)

Chart 7

0:37

Seventh Inning (Lilly / Jan / Marvin)

12:30

1:52

Chart 8

Eighth Inning (All) Chart 9
11:07
1:23
Ninth Inning (All)

T.T.

11:47

49:12

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SYNOPSIS

ACT I
Scene 1 (“First Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium. Night game in progress.

There’s trouble on the field as young star pitcher ANGEL CORAZON repeatedly waves off catcher MARVIN WILDER’S signs. Marvin loses his temper, calls time out, and marches to the pitcher’s mound to confront Angel. DOUGLAS “DUTCH” SCHULHAUS, manager of the Bluebloods, trots to the mound to intervene. Tempers flare; Dutch butts chests with the UMPIRE (the on-stage Conductor) and is thrown out of the game.

Scene 2 (“Second Inning”) - “First Base” Sports Bar. Evening.

Sports agent JAN GREEN enters with a chic young woman, LILLY YOUNG. Jan is playing match-maker; they have come to meet Angel and Marvin. Marvin is intended to be Lilly’s blind date. Angel and Marvin arrive late. Marvin’s posturing fails to impress Lilly, and contrary to Jan and Marvin’s intentions, Angel and Lilly fall into an immediate and easy rapport. Angel invites her to attend his next game, and she eagerly accepts. Jan, disappointed in her hope of rekindling Angel’s ardor, ends the evening early.

Scene 3 (“Third Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium. Workout.

In the bullpen, pitcher Angel warms up. Near him, Jan stands confidently. Jan and Dutch sing of Angel’s talents and bright future. In contrast is the catcher, Marvin. Jan shares with the audience a secret only she knows—Angel has a flawed heart, which if revealed, would render him unemployable. The ensemble issues a rousing call for the game to begin.

Scene 4 (“Fourth Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium bullpen.

Lilly is waiting for Angel to complete afternoon practice. Jan urges Lilly to leave with her. They discuss the baseball life. Angel enters greeting both women fondly from below on the field. Jan leaves, meditating with some bitterness on her thwarted love life prior to exiting. The two lovers are now alone. Lilly expresses doubts. Together they sing a duet – his positive and macho, hers questioning and mixed. Angel implores Lilly to “come down to me, be by my side.”

Scene 5 (“Fifth Inning”) - “First Base.” Evening.

Jan, Angel’s agent, is drinking alone. Marvin enters and joins her. Does she want to win Angel? More than anything, she admits. Marvin challenges Jan—use your skills as an agent to win the thing you want most. Marvin outlines, in vague but sinister terms, a plan to sabotage the unlikely lovers. Jan hesitates—but then agrees. She exits. Marvin vows to exact his jealous vengeance upon the two lovers.

INTERMISSION

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ACT II
Scene 6 (“Sixth Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium. Night game in progress.

Dutch sets the scene at an important late-season game. Angel is sweaty and weary, laboring hard as he pitches. Angel calls time for a conference on the mound. He and Marvin argue again. Angel agrees to throw the pitches that Marvin calls. He does, and disaster ensues: the other team lights up the scoreboard as Angel’s magic deserts him and the game is lost. Marvin rejoices in the ease with which he can control the Fates. Alone on the field after the players have gone, Dutch vows to defend Angel from harm, and to protect the game of baseball.

Scene 7 (“Seventh Inning”) - “First Base Sports Bar”, evening.

Marvin sits alone at the bar, sipping a Martini. Jan arrives with Lilly in tow. Lilly looks around, asks where is Angel—she thought he would be there. Marvin tells her that Angel couldn’t come. Jan excuses herself. Marvin plies Lilly with drinks while planting seeds of doubt in her mind regarding Angel’s fidelity, his suitability as a mate. Marvin and Lilly dance. Lilly, tipsy, rests her head on Marvin’s shoulder as he guides slowly out the door.

Scene 8 (“Eighth Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium bullpen, twilight.

Angel sits alone in the bullpen. Lilly appears at the rail above, stricken. Angel asks her why she didn’t answer when he called last night. Lilly leaves in tears. Dutch telephones from the dugout, telling Angel he is putting him into the game as a closer, and how much is riding on his performance. Lilly returns to the seats above. Marvin is adjusting his catcher’s gear in the bullpen as Jan enters, furiously confronting him. Jan rejects Marvin and everything he stands for, regretting her agreement to help him betray Lilly and Angel.

Scene 9 (“Ninth Inning”) - Metropolitan Stadium infield, night (game continues)

It is the bottom of the 9th in the Pennant Game. Things are not going well for Angel. Dutch calls time and walks to the mound, telling Angel that he has what it takes to win. Jan appears in the stands-concerned about Marvin’s scheming. Angel motions Marvin to the mound. Marvin states that the fact that Lilly is now in love with him—that Angel has lost her—should mean nothing. Marvin’s revelation stuns Angel. Lilly appears in the stands, unnoticed by Angel. He hurls his final pitch, and strikes the final batter out. Angel’s graceful follow-through becomes a slow collapse. A single light illumines the pitcher’s mound, where Angel has been brought to his knees by the strain on his flawed heart. Lilly arrives to cradle Angel in her arms, his Major League career finished. Dutch and Jan kneel beside them, and together they sing a final trio.

CURTAIN

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Cast

Angel Corazon Jan Green
Daniel Montenegro
Carin Gilfry
Dutch Schulhaus Marvin Wilder Lilly Young
Rod Gilfry
Daniel Favela Julie Adams

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COOPERSTOWN

ACT I
OVERTURE
(“Chart 1”) SCENE 1
(“First Inning”)
New York City’s Metropolitan Stadium. Night game in progress.

Pitcher ANGEL CORAZON, wearing a Bluebloods jacket emblazoned “CORAZON,” is on the mound.

Catcher MARVIN WILDER is behind the plate, where BATTER #1 readies himself. BATTER #2 takes practice swings in the on-deck circle.

Blueblood Manager DOUGLAS “DUTCH” SCHULHAUS stands before the dugout, his usual location when he is not center stage. He embodies the stern and resolute gravitas of a Major League veteran.

DUTCH
Top of the first! The start of the game.

(making signals to Marvin)

Give him a rising fastball! Give him a rising fastball!

Angel winds up and “throws” ... the Batter swings and misses.

A two-seamer sinks like Titanic! His four-seamer fastball’s gigantic!

Angel “throws” again ... the Batter watches as the ball “slams” into Marvin’s mitt.

Backspin creates the Magnus Effect. Ball rises up—no way to connect!

Angel nods—Marvin relayed Dutch’s command—and “throws” again. The Batter swings and misses, twisted into a pretzel.

MARVIN
Time!

Batter #1 slams his bat on the ground in anger and stalks back to his dugout. Batter #2 walks to the plate. BATTER #3 steps into the on-deck circle.

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DUTCH
Trouble in the battery! Kid’s waving him off. Wilder needs flattery, He’s got to be boss!

Dutch signals “time” and marches grimly to the mound, beckoning Wilder to join him.

MARVIN

(to Dutch)

He’s off the reservation! Completely lost.

ANGEL
I throw what I want! To hell with the cost!

DUTCH
You can throw, But you don’t know The Book.

ANGEL
I know plenty, I can deal with these jerks!

MARVIN
Just what we need— More prima donnas at work!

DUTCH

(to Angel)

There’s one guy who knows, There’s one guy you owe, And that guy, Angel, Is me!

(indicating Marvin)

Do what he says! Sliders and curves, Tighten the screws, By degree.

Dutch trudges to the Blueblood dugout. Marvin stalks back to the plate, where Batter #2 waits. Angel turns his back to the plate, composing himself.

DUTCH
Now batting fourth— Leading the League, A fearsome monster,

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Going for ten in a row. Now comes the wind-up... Now comes the pitch... Now comes the switch...

As in slow motion, Batter #2 swings and misses:

ANGEL

MARVIN

Control, power, and speed, All the tools that I need. Upper pocket, inside! Upper pocket, inside!
This guy’s a ball chaser, With no place to hide. Low down corner, outside! Low down corner, outside!

Marvin has to reach hard for Angel’s pitch, falling on the ball.

ALL

(shouted)

Stirrrr-RIKE!

Angel throws again—and Batter #2 swings—the CRACK of a bat! Marvin throws off his mask and waits for a pop-up to fall into his mitt.

DUTCH
Angel’s got the heat Never a hitch. The man of the hour To beat.

(to Marvin)

Changes and off-speed Stuff for this guy! I read the stats, And they never lie.

MARVIN
Start thinking ahead To next Opening Day. I’m tired of playing For half Angel’s pay.

DUTCH
How much is enough?

MARVIN
Talk to my agent.

DUTCH
That’s not my job