| re: My Favorite Overtures | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:00 pm EDT 03/29/24 | |
| In reply to: re: My Favorite Overtures - scoot1er 01:19 pm EDT 03/29/24 | |
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| Some years back. someone else who saw the original run twice told me he definitely remembered an overture. He used to have a site on West Side Story, which seems to have been gone for some years now, and I can't remember his name. Irwin Kostal told more than one person that the overture was created later. But here are a few reasons why I feel pretty certain that Kostal's memory was wrong and that the overture was played during the original run. I have found three mentions in the press of it being played during the original run. Just to be clear, the mentions in the press were all during the original run. One is from Times classical music critic (later also theatre critic) Howard Taubman, who wrote, "The overture to 'West Side Story' promises tension and excitement. In musical and dramatic terms it is exhilarating and foreboding." Nigel Simeone in his book on West Side Story writes that Taubman must have meant the prologue, but I don't think Taubman would have done that. He was a classical-music critic, and he'd also written on musicals from his early days at the Times, and I doubt he would have done that. The Prologue was listed in the playbill, and I think if Taubman had meant the prologue, he would have called it that. Still, if there were no other evidence, I might say that Simeone might be right. In the summer of 1958, Charles McHarry writing in the Daily News mentioned that he'd returned to see West Side Story for a second time. One of the pleasures of going to the theatre in the summer, he wrote, was that audiences got there on time. He wrote, "I arrived just as the overture was beginning, and I was one of the last guests to be seated." Again, he could be referring to the prologue, but it doesn't sound that way to me. Most definitive, however, is from the Toronto Globe and Mail dated December 21, 1957, where the paper's classical-music critic, John Kraglund, wrote this: “Bernstein’s music is perhaps the most important element, for it sets the confused, restless mood of the show before the curtain rises on the first of Oliver Smith’s imaginative sets. While the level of volume chosen by the composer would be less appropriate to other musicals, it might be worth considering for almost any production, since this was one of the really rare occasions when we heard the overture, despite the dull roar of the audience.” Since he writes that the music to which he's referring was played "before the curtain rises," he must mean the overture, not the prologue. There are other reasons why I think the overture was played during the original run, including this from a letter that Bernstein wrote to Felicia a few days before the D.C. opening: "If I sound punch[y?], it's because I am. Up all night trying to put together an overture of sorts, to carry through until I do a real good prelude." Now that's less than definitive. It could be that they put together an overture but it wasn't then used. Still, it tells us that an overture was prepared, and again I think it's quite clear that he means the overture, not the prologue, which clearly wasn't put together just a few days before the D.C. opening. Much later, in a Times interview, he said that he regretted that there was an overture, which he said he didn't write, so I guess he'd forgotten writing it, unless the one he prepared before the D.C. opening was replaced by a different one, but I doubt that. There are actually a few more bits of evidence that the overture was played during the original run, but I'll leave it there. I think that's enough. |
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