Rodgers & Hammerstein Encore!

OLLI Summer Term 2020 • Alan Teasley, Instructor

Class 1 • Rodgers & Hammerstein Before Oklahoma! Today’s Opening Number

Link (2:28)

Rodgers & Hammerstein

(1943-59)

• 11 Shows • 34 Tony Awards • 15 Academy Awards • 2 Grammys • 2 Emmys • 2 Pulitzer Prizes

• Integrated song, story, and dance “as never before” (Purdum)

• Owned their own publishing house and the rights to all their shows

• Built an extensive casting and producing organization

• Pioneered recording of original cast albums

Innovations

Goals of the Course

You will: Be familiar with five Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musicals (and be able to hum at least one song from each!)

Know about the careers of these men before and after their partnership

Understand the innovations that made this team’s shows revolutionary in the 1940s and 1950s

Enjoy Rodgers and Hammerstein’s many contributions to the Great American Songbook

Recommended Text:

Todd S. Purdum, Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution (2018)

Course Web Site: www.musicals-101.com

A Word about the “Culminating Project”

Before the final class, compile a list of (at most) 20 Rodgers and Hammerstein songs you would include on your own “Essential R&H” playlist, album, concert, or revue.

Today’s Focus

You will have: An overview of the course and some of the resources available to you

You will know: Characteristics of the typical musical comedies of the 1920s The works of Hammerstein and Rodgers with earlier collaborators Why Showboat embodied such a watershed moment in musical comedy

Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960)

• Third generation show business: • Grandfather (Oscar I) was a German

theatrical impresario • Father (William) was a theatrical

manager, who opposed Oscar’s entering the business

• Studied at Columbia University (undergrad & law school)

• First show was produced in 1920 (last in 1960)

• Co-wrote 850 songs

Hammerstein’s Mentor:

Otto Harbach• Lyricist & Librettist • 22 years older than Oscar • Emphasized dramatic values • Favored florid lyrics of

operetta: “A litany of dreams, moons, stars, and dew” (Purdum) Hammerstein’s Early Collaborators

Rufolf Friml

Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg Jerome Kern

Rudolf Friml

• Rose-Marie (1924)* • “Indian Love Call”

• The Wild Rose(1926)

*Lyrics by Hammerstein & Harbach

Sigmund Romberg

• The Desert Song (1926)* • The New Moon (1928)

• “Lover, Come Back to Me” • “Stouthearted Men” • “One Kiss”

*with Lyricists Otto Harbach & Frank Mandel

Georges Bizet

Carmen Jones (1943)

Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Preview of film (1954)

Jerome Kern• Sunny (1925)*

• “Who?” • Show Boat (1927) • Sweet Adeline (1929)

• “Don’t Ever Leave Me” • Music in the Air (1932)

• “I’ve Told Every Little Star” • “The Song is You”

• Very Warm for May (1939) • “All the Things You Are”

• Lady Be Good (Film, 1941) • “The Last Time I Saw Paris”

*with Lyricist Otto Harbach

Show Boat (1927)

Producer: Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. Music: Jerome Kern Book & Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Based on the novel by Edna Ferber Additional Lyrics & Songs: P. G. Wodehouse, Charles K. Harris, & Joseph E. Howard Staged by: Zeke Colvan & Oscar Hammerstein II Cast: Helen Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Jules Bledsoe, Howard Marsh

Show Boat (1927)

Broadway: The American Musical

(PBS, 2004)

from Episode 1: “Give My Regards to

Broadway (1893-1927)”

[9:46]

Films of Show Boat

1929

Sigmund Romberg

1936 1951

Recordings of Show Boat

Songs From Show Boat

“Make Believe”

“Ol’Man River”

“Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”

“Life Upon the Wicked Stage”

“You Are Love”

“Why Do I Love You?”

“Bill” (lyrics: P. G. Wodehouse)

“After the Ball” (Charles K. Harris)

Hal Prince on Show Boat (1994)

“It is the first great contemporary modern musical. The first to merge the traditional, happy-go-lucky naiveté of Broadway musical comedy with serious themes. The first with a score ranging from light-hearted, popular 32-bar songs to 19th century operetta and grand opera.”

“Show Boat is essentially a celebration of the family . . . and a love affair with theatre people.”

Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)

• Father was a prominent Jewish physician

• Met both Oscar Hammerstein and Lorenz Hart at Columbia

• Before becoming a composer, “I was a baby.”

• Studied at what is now Julliard • Influenced by Victor Herbert,

Jerome Kern, and operettas he saw as a child

Lorenz Hart (1895-1943)

• Born in NYC to Jewish immigrant parents

• Met RR at Columbia in 1919 • First major success in 1925 with

The Garrick Gaities featuring “Manhattan”

• Troubled personal life • Known for lyrics that are alternately

witty and heartbreaking

Rodgers & Hart on Broadway

(1919-43)

• 27 Shows (at least!) • No Tony Awards (The

Tonys didn’t start until after Hart’s death.)

• Countless performances of their songs . . .

“Rodgers & Hart”

Broadway: The American Musical

(PBS, 2004)

from Episode 2: “Syncopated City

(1919-1933)”

[5:02]

Jumbo (1935, film: 1962)

“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”

“My Romance”

“Little Girl Blue”

On Your Toes (1936, film: 1939)

“Too Good for the Average Man”

“There’s a Small Hotel”

“The Heart is Quicker than the Eye”

“Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” (choreographed by George Balanchine in the 1939 film*)

*Link on course website [13:11]

Babes in Arms (1937)

“Where or When” [3:38]

“I Wish I Were in Love Again”

“My Funny Valentine”

“Johnny One Note”

“The Lady Is A Tramp”

The Boys from Syracuse (1938)

“Sing for Your Supper”

“Falling in Love with Love”

“This Can’t Be Love”

Pal Joey (1940, film: 1957)

“I Could Write a Book”

“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”

“Zip” (Elaine Stritch)*

*Link on course web site [4:52]

A Connecticut Yankee (1927, 1943)

“Thou Swell”

“My Heart Stood Still”

“To Keep My Love Alive” (Ella Fitzgerald, 3:38)

There are Hart Detractors . . .

Stephen Sondheim, in Finishing the Hat, accuses Hart of laziness:

Mis-stressed syllables

Convoluted syntax

Sacrifice of meaning for rhyme

—“Lorenz Hart: Jaunty and Careless” (p. 152)

Homework Opportunity 1

Watch a performance of Oklahoma!:

North Carolina School of the Arts’ 2017 “Restoration”

on YouTube

Or . . . .

Homework Opportunity 2

Hugh Jackman in the National Theatre’s

1999 Revival on Amazon Prime

(with Broadway HD subscription)

Looking Ahead to Class 3: Ballet from Carousel

New York City Ballet presents

Carousel (A Dance) Choreographed by

Justin Peck

Streaming May 22-26 www.nycballet.com