| re: My Favorite Overtures | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:42 pm EDT 03/30/24 | |
| In reply to: re: My Favorite Overtures - scoot1er 09:22 am EDT 03/30/24 | |
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| Yes, there is no question that even though Bernstein conducted the overture on opening night of the return engagement, he didn't much want it in the show, or at least not in the published score. But I think it has always been included as an option in the licensed materials. And I think, although I'm not sure about this, that one later edition of the score includes it as an option, perhaps at the back of the score. Despite Bernstein not liking it, it was played in the 1980 Broadway revival. I presume he could have demanded that it be dropped, but he let it be played. Here is something else that makes it very clear that an overture existed before the North American national tour and the return engagement. The Manchester tryout prior to the London production started on November 16, 1958. Both Variety and the British paper The Stage reported on a dispute that occurred during the first week of performances in Manchester. The cast was entirely American. It was common for shows in England to play performances on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. The curtain for the 5 p.m show on Saturday came down at 7:20. The manager of the Manchester Opera House was informed that American Equity rules entitle the actors to at least an hour’s break between performances. So there was no choice but for the audience to sit there waiting. When the overture started playing at 8:15, the company manager for the cast protested. (Company manager is the term used in Variety, but I think this must have been the Equity deputy, presuming that term existed then.) The company manager was told that the overture took six minutes to play, and so the cast would not be onstage till an hour had passed. And the orchestra was British, anyway. So we know that an overture existed and was played, at least during the pre-London tryout, by November 1958. Another bit of evidence, although this is certainly less definitive than some other pieces of evidence as people’s memories are fallible, comes on page 253 of Greg Lawrence’s book about Robbins, Dance With Demons. Michael Callan recalled Robbins berating him (“reamed my ass” is how Callan put it) that he didn’t seem tough or angry enough. According to Dance With Demons, Callan wrote in his unpublished memoir, Spilling the Beans, that Robbins asked him, “Do you hate me?”, Robbins asked. “No, sir,” Callan replied. Robbins told Callan to think of something he hated before going onstage. Despite having told Robbins that he didn’t hate him, Callan wrote, “As the overture began and I was waiting for the curtain to rise, I kept saying to myself over and over Jerry Robbins, Jerry Robins, Jerry Robbins!” Again, because of the fallibility of peoples’ memories, I wouldn’t take Callan’s memory of waiting in the wings for the curtain to rise as the overture was playing as definitive, but put together with other stuff, it’s an extra piece of evidence. Anyway, I presume this happened during the tryout as they were still rehearsing, so if Callan’s memory was correct, it would just show that the overture was played at some point during the tryout. But those newspaper mentions provide stronger evidence, especially Kraglund’s, which I think cannot be read as referring to anything other than the overture and not the prologue. But given your memory of there not being an overture when you saw it, I again offer the possibility that the overture may have been dropped during the run. |
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