120885bk Street:MASTER 3+3 14/5/09 9:52 AM Page 2 Act I Act II. 1. Ain’t It Awful, The Heat 3:44 Scene 1 Also available in the Naxos Musicals series ... Maria Martino, Alice Lee, Catherine 11. Entr’acte: There’ll Be Trouble 9:00 Helgenberg & Ensemble Norman Atkins, Polyna Stoska & 2. I Got A Marble And A Star 1:29 Dorothy Sarnoff Ferdinand Hilt 12. A Boy Like You 2:47 3. Gossip Trio: Get A Load Of That 1:07 Polyna Stoska Maria Martino, Alice Lee, Catherine 13. We’ll Go Away Together 3:01 Helgenberg & Ensemble Brian Sullivan & Dorothy Sarnoff 4. When A Woman Has A Baby 1:42 14. The Woman Who Lived Up There 5:19 Chris Ortiz & Ensemble Ensemble 5. Scene: Somehow I Never Could Scene 2 Believe 8:19 15. Interlude—Lullaby 5:36 Polyna Stoska Nursemaids 8.120786 8.120845 8.120846 6. Ice Cream Sextet 4:38 16. I Loved Her Too 3:50 Henry Timmerman & Ensemble Norman Atkins, Dorothy Sarnoff & Ensemble 7. Let Things Be Like They Always Was 17. Don’t Forget The Lilac Bush; 3:00 Ain’t It Awful, The Heat 6:13 Norman Atkins Brian Sullivan & Dorothy Sarnoff, 8. Lonely House 3:50 Maria Martino, Alice Lee, Catherine Brian Sullivan Helgenberg & Ensemble 9. What Good Would The Moon Be? 5:26 Orchestra and Chorus under the direction Dorothy Sarnoff of Izler Solomon 10. Remember That I Care 5:33 Concert performance, Hollywood Bowl, Dorothy Sarnoff & Brian Sullivan 21 August 1949, recorded for overseas broadcast by Armed Forces Radio Service 8.120877 8.120878 8.120879 IE-38-99, Program 99, mx RL 15558/65 C The cast was specially assembled for this one concert and performers in some instances are These titles are not for retail sale in the USA uncertain but given here according to best knowledge. M Transfers & Production: David Lennick • Digital Restoration: Alan Bunting Cover picture: New York City street (© Joselito Briones / iStockphoto.com) Y 5 8.120885 6 8.120885 K 120885bk Street:MASTER 3+3 14/5/09 9:52 AM Page 1 its three collaborators (Weill, Rice and lyricist York City opera star Polyna Stoska (heard on One also only has to look at the musicals high school graduation or a jitterbugging Street Scene Langston Hughes), which stopped the work this 1949 concert performance from the which were successful on Broadway during romance, which spawned the show's one pop Music by Kurt Weill • Book by Elmer Rice from achieving the seamless unity it needed. Hollywood Bowl) to play the leading role of the year Street Scene made its run for glory. hit, “Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed” (not heard on Lyrics by Langston Hughes Rice felt that his original play was near tortured wife Anna Maurrant. Irish-American They were either fantasies (Brigadoon and this recording). But those few upbeat perfection and didn’t want many changes made tenor Brian Sullivan, also heard on this Finian’s Rainbow) or amiable nostalgic romps moments weren't quite enough. Concert Performance at the Hollywood Bowl, 1949 to it at all, no matter how long and how recording, was a late cast replacement. (High Button Shoes and Up In Central Park). And that’s a shame, because there’s a rich Recorded for overseas broadcast by Armed Forces Radio passionately Weill argued with him about the In fact, many of the cast found themselves Audiences still smarting from wartime vein of music waiting to be discovered here. differences between drama and musicals. being made expendable during the contentious privation or the loss of loved ones in combat After a period of neglect, the show has been There are many things to cheer about Kurt In fact, he had approached the testy and Every time Weill or Hughes would argue rehearsal process as opera singers proved to be didn’t want to see a grim drama about a re-discovered in recent years and its broad Weill and the varied career he led in the egomaniacal Rice years before with his request, that a cut had to be made in the text to make weak actors and vice versa. poverty-stricken tenement that climaxed with theatricality, deep emotion and extravagant American musical theatre, but the sheer only to be told that “Whatever prestige value room for the musical numbers, Rice would dig Some of the sturdier survivors were then- the leading male figure shooting and killing his melodic gifts are still waiting to be enjoyed unpredictability of it all is what proves most there would be in a successful musical version his heels in, proclaiming, “Now that was a ingenue Anne Jeffreys, who went on to play adulterous wife and her lover. today. electrifying. would accrue primarily to the composer.” celebrated line!” leading roles in later shows such as Kiss Me, There were some crumbs of hope thrown And nothing was more surprising than the Still, Weill continued to pursue Rice, who – Eventually, however, they worked out some Kate, and juvenile Danny Daniels, who to the younger generation in the form of a Richard Ouzounian creative leap he took that found him writing riding high on the success of his 1945 hit, kind of compromise which allowed them to emerged in the 1950s as a talented and long- 1947’s Street Scene. Dream Girl – finally decided to agree to the finish their labours. lasting choreographer. A man who started out in Germany with composer’s proposal. But then, the battle had just begun. Rice But after the show’s opening on 9 January Producer’s Note Bertolt Brecht, penning works such as The As lyricist, Weill brought on black poet was as penurious as he was contentious and 1947, it looked like all the work had been This version of Street Scene was part of a two-hour concert broadcast live from the Hollywood Threepenny Opera, began his Stateside career Langston Hughes, who had no credits as a was reluctant to allow substantial financial worth the effort. The reviews were largely Bowl and recorded by the Armed Forces Radio Service, who pressed it on sixteen-inch with a harshly political piece such as Johnny Broadway lyricist up to that point. He control to any conventional Broadway dazzling, headed by Brooks Atkinson in The transcription discs. Program host Jack Little, not heard here, described the proceedings and Johnson, reminiscent of his European shows. collaborated beautifully with Weill and some of producer. New York Times, who called it “a musical play introduced the performers but said nothing about the plot or characters, and in fact we've had to But then came Knickerbocker Holiday, their combined works written for the show Finally, the once-powerful Dwight Deere of magnificence and glory.” make educated guesses concerning a couple of numbers he did not announce. He also which kept the politics, but lightened the such as Lonely House, What Good Would Wiman, now near the end of his career, took Yet somehow, the show failed to capture the apologized to the radio audience after the opening number because one microphone failed to mood, to be followed by the elegant frippery the Moon Be? and Somehow I Never Could over the nominal leadership reins, allowing The public’s imagination and after two months of work, leaving the vocal ensemble almost inaudible. of Lady in the Dark, the gossamer Believe have a unique beauty. Playwrights’ Company (of which Rice was a solid houses, the audiences began falling off sophistication of One Touch of Venus and the Weill himself felt that the score contained charter member) to actually control the rapidly and Street Scene closed after 148 frankly outdated operetta of The Firebrand of some of his greatest writing and once proudly production. performances, having failed to pay back its Florence. predicted that “Seventy-five years from now, Strong directors that Weill favoured, such as investment. It was after the failure of the last work, in Street Scene will be remembered as my major Rouben Mamoulian, were eventually vetoed by The antagonistic Rice blamed the fact, that Weill was reminded of how moved he work.” Rice and the relatively low-key Charles “extravagant” production and the “artiness” of had been by seeing a Berlin production of Alas, that’s not the case, despite the musical Friedman staged the show. Weill’s music (which went on to win the first Street Scene, Elmer Rice’s 1929 Pulitzer Prize and dramatic richness which fill the piece. The Battles continued over casting, with Weill Tony Award in 1947 for “Best Score”), but the winning drama of life in the slums on the East fact that it never truly succeeded can be traced wanting strong voices in all the roles. He won probable cause of the show’s rapid demise can Side of Manhattan. partially to the antipathy that grew up among in some important cases, such as getting New be found elsewhere. 2 8.120885 3 8.120885 4 8.120885 120885bk Street:MASTER 3+3 14/5/09 9:52 AM Page 1 its three collaborators (Weill, Rice and lyricist York City opera star Polyna Stoska (heard on One also only has to look at the musicals high school graduation or a jitterbugging Street Scene Langston Hughes), which stopped the work this 1949 concert performance from the which were successful on Broadway during romance, which spawned the show's one pop Music by Kurt Weill • Book by Elmer Rice from achieving the seamless unity it needed. Hollywood Bowl) to play the leading role of the year Street Scene made its run for glory.