| re: Does the musical West Side Story use an overture? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:26 pm EDT 08/23/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Does the musical West Side Story use an overture? - RLand 11:06 am EDT 08/23/18 | |
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| Yes, wssonstage. Doesn't seem to be there anymore. Wish it was and that my emails with the guy whose site it was hadn't disappeared. Sorry if I wasn't clear about the question of Bernstein conducting on opening night. There's absolutely no question about it. He didn't. When that Robbins documentary was shown, I emailed Amanda Vaill, the Robbins biographer who was credited as the writer of the documentary, about this. Although I knew it was unlikely, I hoped that just perhaps that might be cut from the documentary in future showings and any future reissues on video. She was at first skeptical of my claim, but after I presented her with some evidence from the news accounts at that time — including the press release statement that when Bernstein conducted the overture on opening night of the return engagement, it would be the first time he had conducted any of his own shows on Broadway — she admitted that I must be right. She even said that she had wondered about it when Dale said it because she would have expected that if it had happened, she would have read about it elsewhere. And, yes, if Bernstein had conducted the original opening night, it would have been mentioned in the reviews. That was another thing I pointed out to Vaill. Bernstein did conduct opening night (and the next two performances) of the 1947 revival of The Cradle Will Rock, which he had conducted a month earlier in concert at City Center. Bernstein conducting was mentioned in reviews, so surely if that was mentioned in 1947, Bernstein conducting WSS would have been mentioned (as, indeed, a number of critics mentioned him conducting the overture on opening night of the return engagement). So, yeah, it's not in question that it didn't happen. But most people watching that documentary will probably think it happened. |
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