PRELUDE, FUGUE News for Friends of Leonard Bernstein RIFFS Summer/Spring 2005 An Accolade for One Helluva Show by Richard Morrison As Lu11do11 welcomed back the pz,ergreen musical On the Town, the limes talks to lyricist Bctt)' Comden. any writers have captured something The Creative Team of the spirit of of On the Town New York. But in an apartment high above the Leonard Bernstein, bustle of her beloved Broadway Jerome Robbins, sits a frail 89-year-old woman who defined the city for a genera­ Betty Comden, and tion. Sixty-one years ago, Betty Adolph Green. 1944 Comden sat down with her writing partner, Adolph Green, in a little room just two blocks from where she now lives, and encapsulated the frenetic swirl of the great metropolis in one of the most evocative quatrains ever penned: New York, New York, a helluva town. The Bronx is up but the Battery's down, The people ideas, wrote the lyrics," she says. 24 hours' leave to explore its ride in a hole in the groun'; "We had complementary minds. delights. As Comden says: New York, New York, The same kind of humour, the "New York's streets were full it's a helluva town. same views. But as I had foolishly of servicemen, all searching for learnt to type, I was the one who joy before being sent into the Whether it was Comden or had to write it all down." war. We wanted to capture the Green who came up with these What she typed in the summer poignancy of those times." pulsating lines will never be of 1944 were the opening words Comden knew at first hand of known. Green died two years of a musical perfectly tailored that poignancy. Two years earlier ago, and Comden is not going to the snatch-it-while-you-can she had married. Since then she to give away the trade secrets of mood of wartime New York. The had hardly seen her husband, the 20th century's most endur­ plot was simple: three American who was fighting overseas. In ing lyric-writing team. "We did sailors new to the city, with just her wonderful 1995 memoir, Off everything together: hatched the (continued on page 2) 4 Candide Bernstein & Ca lendar of Events Inside ... On the Waterfront The Bernstein Beat Looking Ahead 1 In the News An Accolade, continued Stage, she writes: "It was a heart­ ing work in the nightclubs of rending time, brimming with anx­ Greenwich Village. There she met To Our iety and unremitting loneliness ... another aspiring thespian - the Sometimes I'd think I saw him Bronx-born Green. Together with Readers in the crowd, and even though I three other friends (one of them knew better, I'd run and look." Judy Holliday) they formed a per­ The frenetic vibrancy of the forming group called the Revuers. city that never sleeps; the gnaw­ "We wrote all the music ing desire of young people thrust and sketches," Comden says. t is stunning to be reminded how together by circumstance and "Satire mostly. I still have some Iwidely Leonard Bernstein spread as swiftly wrenched apart: that material, in very poor condition. his creative net. This issue illus­ was the intensity which On the We picked up work ... well, trates the point in no uncertain Town captured when it opened sporadically. We never got to be terms. Yes, he was a conductor on Broadway in December 1944. famous. But we stayed together. - and here comes the re-release of It was a massive hit, running And we were yo ung, in New some fascinating early recordings for 460 performances. Then, in York. It was fun." Then a new on Deutsche Grammophon. Yes, he 1949, with Gene Kelly and Frank figure entered their lives. Green was a composer - and in this issue Sinatra in the leads, it became took a lodger in his little East alone, we hear of On the Town one of the most vibrant of film 9th Street apartment: a young at the English National Opera, musicals (though much changed musician out of Harvard called Candide at New York City Opera, from the stage show). Leonard Bernstein. "He was and the long-unseen Dybbuk at the And now it is being staged exuberant, brilliant, funny, hand­ San Francisco Ballet. In addition, in London by English National some, incomparable," Comden On the Waterfront has received Opera. "I'm thrilled they want recalls. "He came one night to see renewed attention for its ground­ to do it," Comden says. ''I'd like our show, then sat down at the breaking approach to film scoring. to come over and see it. But it's piano at 3:00 am when we (Bernstein fought bitterly with been a tough winter." had finished and played the director Elia Kazan over the At 61 years' distance, the whole thing back to us from haunting solo French horn under success of On the Town seems memory. I went home, woke the opening credits; no one had almost predestined. Particularly my mother and said: 'Mom, ever had "quiet" opening as its creators were four people I've met my first genius'." credits before!) now regarded as gods of the Comden, Green and Bernstein Meanwhile, The Bernstein Beat American musical: Comden were soon close friends; they goes around the country exposing and Green writing the lyrics, remained so until Bernstein died a new crop of young people to his Leonard Bernstein composing the in 1990. "The three of them music. When asked if they've heard music and Jerome Robbins doing had this incredible mixture of of West Side Story, kids shoot their the choreography. goofiness and brilliance and hands up enthusiastically all over But that was not how it total dedication to their craft," the auditorium. With the 50th seemed at the time. In fact the Bernstein's son, Alexander, anniversary of West Side Story show was a massive gamble. recalled years later. So it was approaching, a postage stamp Amazingly, none of the four, then natural that when a producer commemorating the show's birth in their mid-twenties, had worked suggested that a ballet called seems like a great idea. (And you on Broadway before. "Never Fancy Free, which Bernstein had can help! See p.11.) came close," Comden says. composed for Jerome Robbins, be Bernstein festivals are brewing "The anxiety was enormous." expanded into a full-length musi­ from Cambridge to New Orleans All four - like Irving Berlin, cal, the composer should turn to to England and beyond. His books the Gershwins, and practically his old Greenwich Village chums The Joy of Music and The Young every other great figure in Tin to supply the necessary words. People's Concerts have been Pan Alley in the 1920s and 1930s That was how On the Town reprinted - and to top it all off, - were talented, ambitious started. But its progress was far Steve Rowland's ambitious scions of Jewish immigrant from easy. To begin with, the four 11-part radio documentary families from Eastern Europe. collaborators wrote a kind of Leonard Bernstein: An American Comden's original name, she artistic statement of intent. "We Life has won a Peabody Award. In delights in revealing in her were determined to make a show short, Bernstein's creative contrail memoir, was Basya Astershinsky that was integrated," Comden has never been brighter. Simselyevitch-Simselyovitch, says. "We wanted the book, J.B. • which would surely have looked lyrics, dance and music to work wonderful on a Broadway bill­ together to tell the story." board, had it ever got that far. The trouble was, virtually Brooklyn-bred, she studied everything had to be written drama at New York University on the hoof. Bernstein, who was 0 and started picking up perform- often conducting on tour, actually composed the tune of Hollywood masterpiece Singin' and death in his thirties. She also New York, New York on a train in the Rain. Though married to quotes Edith Wharton's line: crossing Nebraska - about as other people, they met every day "Life is the saddest thing there is, far removed from a big city's and sustained a working relation­ next to death." bustle as it is possible to get. And ship over six decades. But sadly, But her genius, and the genius the show's most tender number, they worked only once more with of all those indefatigable troupers Some Other Time - a song of Bernstein - on the 1952 musical in Broadway's golden age, was immeasurable wistfulness - was Wonderful Town, very much an to conjure something so joyous on stage that, if only momen­ tarily, it lifted the heart out of its own turmoil. "The best thing for me," she says, "is when people say: 'You brought us such pleasure'. And yes, I still think New York is a helluva town. Or a wonderful town, depending on which lyric you would like me to quote." • Richard Morrison is chief music critic and cultural commentator for The Times, London. First Published in The Times, London. Reprinted by permission. The uraxi NumberH from the ENO Production. cobbled together in a desperate evocation of the bohemian 1930s all-night session in Boston. Greenwich Village where they On the Town "We were in the window of had all met. a music store because that was "After On the Town the only place we could find a Lenny promised his mentor his spring the English National Opera piano," Comden recalls. "We Koussevitzky [the conductor of presented On The Town to sold-out needed a special song, and we the Boston Symphony] that he houses and added-on performances.