Mid-Year Wrap-Up, 2024

Boulanger, G&S, Gordon, Harnick, Moravec

Copyright by Leonard J. Lehrman  

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), perhaps the greatest music teacher of all time, with over 700 private students from many countries, though mostly the U.S. (including me – see photo from March 1972), was not a great composer, and she knew it. In fact, compared with her sister Lili (1893-1918), whom she considered a genius, she called her own music “useless.” In an interview I conducted May 21, 2021, with her devoted student Robert X. Rodriguez (1946- ), he put his finger on the matter, saying: “She could write pretty good [Gabriel] Fauré” (1845-1924) – and often mentioned her exciting experiences in his classes, with Ravel, and others, but lacked an “individual voice” of her own. (See https://youtu.be/q8AFjQ_vb8M.)  And yet the legacy of her own compositions, though devoid of any masterpieces, is still worth probing and remembering.

Seven years ago, my colleague David Brin sent me a 2-CD set on the Delos label, DE 3496, entitled Mademoiselle – Première Audience: Unknown Music of Nadia Boulanger, including 26 songs (a dozen of them world premieres, all in French except 3 in German on poems by Heine) and a dozen instrumental works – for piano, cello & piano, and organ. Lovingly produced, it is a very engaging album, with conscientious pianist Lucy Mauro accompanying sensitive singing by soprano Nicole Cabell, tenor Alek Shrader, and baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer – whose frequent voix mixte calls to mind the technique of Gérard Souzay (1918-2004), whose recitals and master classes that I attended at Fontainebleau in 1969 were unforgettable – if only he had included some of Mademoiselle’s in his repertoire (though I’m sure she would have discouraged that)!  Amit Peled and François-Henri Houbart are the redoutable cellist and organist, respectively. The album notes, texts and English translations are lavish with care, with just a few gaffes here and there: e.g., “réveil” is correctly translated as “awakening,” but on the same page mistranslated as “alarm.” Many of the songs are well worth listening to, especially settings of texts by Hugo, Maeterlinck, Verlaine, and a most poignant song of an abandoned mother, to Nadia’s own text, “Soir d’hiver.”

That unpublished song of 1914-15 followed her only opera, La Ville Morte (1910-13) – not to be confused with the completely different work of the same title in German: Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s masterpiece, Die Tote Stadt (1919). And perhaps the song reflects her feelings about the opera, which was a collaboration with her father-figure (and lover) Raoul Pugno (1852-1914), who died just before their work – figuratively, their child – was about to be born, at the Opéra Comique in Paris. The war intervened, and no production was ever realized in her lifetime. Though she seems to have sent a score of it to Leonard Bernstein, that was one of many projects he apparently contemplated doing but never brought to fruition. (Another was the unfinished work of Marc Blitzstein, another Boulanger student, which I completed, with his, and her, blessing.)

This past spring, the enterprising conductor Neal Goren and his relatively new company, Catapult Opera, commissioned a new orchestration of La Ville Morte by students of David Conte (a faithful disciple of Boulanger’s teaching methods) for an ensemble of 11 instruments, much smaller than the grandiose one originally envisioned; cut the chorus; and premiered the work in Greece (fittingly enough, as the opera takes place there) and then at NYU’s Skirball Auditorium.  The one thing I missed in the orchestration – as compared with that posted on the internet by a Spoleto production – was the harp.

Sacco and Vanzetti by Ben Shahn

I myself debated using a harp in my 2003 orchestration of my completion of Blitzstein’s Sacco and Vanzetti, and sought the advice of composer Jack Beeson. “That depends,” he mused, “on whether you want the sound to be north of the Alps or south of the Alps” – meaning, I interpreted, Weill/Eisler/Krenek vs. Giordano/Malipiero/Dallapiccola.  I decided Blitzstein’s musical style was much closer to the former than the latter; and I think I made the right decision in not using it.  Comparing, aurally, the sound of the Catapult production with that of Spoleto, however, I think the similar decision by Conte & Co. is at least highly questionable. With piano, the piece veers toward the sounds of Boulanger colleague Stravinsky and student Copland. With harp, it’s more like that of her mentors/models – Fauré and Debussy.  The work definitely shares the fluid, flowing, French atmosphere of the latter’s Pelléas et Mélisande (even sharing some of the same words – “Ne me touchez pas!”) much more than anything Russian or American.

Robin Guarino staged the opera as a story within a story, framing the libretto based on a play by Gabriele d’Annunzio (in which none other than Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse had starred) with the use of a typewriter in the hands of Anne, the blind heroine, sung by the in fact visually impaired mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin, whom everybody falls and then dies for, nuptially, incestually, lesbianly – husband Léonard (tenor Joshua Dennis), brother Alexandre (baritone Jorell Williams), and confidante Hébé (soprano Melissa Harvey). All sang their roles ardently and were rewarded with fervent applause from a full house. The fatalistic plot recalls Tchaikovsky’s much happier one-act masterpiece, Iolanta, which also features love and insight as a cure for blindness.

Not to be confused with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe, which coincidentally received productions by two New York companies this season: Bronx Opera and the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island. (Why? To underline the idiocy of a parliament, or Congress, that does “nothing in particular”? Perhaps.) The former featured a rising orchestra pit for the entrance of the title character – which we enjoyed hearing Alyssa Mener sing in a piano performance at North Merrick Library May 19. Also enjoyed on Long Island were Henry Horstmann as Strephon; Kara Vertucci as Phyllis; Ben Salers as Private Willis; and especially Delaney Page as the Fairy Queen in the final performance, directed by Gayden Wren, with orchestra conducted by David Bernard at Molloy College June 30. I had thought the orchestra was going to be considerably smaller than that which I conducted the company in for Princess Ida last year, but was pleasantly surprised to see (and hear) that it was the same size, or even a bit larger. Kudos!

Another opera that received wide publicity, and deserved applause, this past April, was Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath with libretto by Michael Korie based on the beloved novel by John Steinbeck.  The novel, and the 1940 John Ford film starring Henry Fonda, have always been among my favorite works in those media, and I was eager to see the opera, that began in Minnesota in 2007, in three acts, and went through various versions, including a two-acter, in concert, premiered at Carnegie Hall March 22, 2010, narrated by Henry’s daughter Jane, conducted by Ted Sperling. Ted conducted that concert version again four years later, with Master Voices, and returned to lead the work yet again for his 10th anniversary celebration with the group at Carnegie Hall April 17.  Though I missed the staging (the final nursing scene without the nursee is a little arch); and the dialog that culminates in my mother’s favorite line: “We’re all reds!”; and the unforgettable intonation of Henry Fonda’s repeated “I’ll be there” in Tom Joad’s final scene with his mother (set to music by Gordon a little disconcertingly as “I’ll be there!”), the overall impression was a definitely positive one; and I’d be happy to see the work again, especially in its fully staged version. Particular praise was deserved by the (underwritten, i.e. sponsored) performances by Nathan Gunn as Pa Joad, John Brancy as Al, and Micaela Bennett as Rose of Sharon – as well as the excellent mezzo Margaret Lattimore as Ma Joad.

Meeting after the performance with Ted Sperling and his Executive Director, the capable Julie Morgan (who premiered the title role in my opera Hannah in Germany in 1980), I learned that he was planning to celebrate the centennial of librettist (and composer) Sheldon Harnick (April 30, 1924-June 23, 2023) at the 92nd Street Y on June 1-3, 2024.  Harnick was a dear friend of mine, one of the first honorary members, along with Elie Siegmeister, of my Jüdischer Musiktheaterverein Berlin, which I organized after becoming the first Jew to conduct Fiddler on the Roof in that city, in 1983. From 1999 to 2009 Sheldon regularly contributed to The Elie Siegmeister Society, culminating in our Siegmeister Centennial Concerts and CD, and the Siegmeister bio-bibliography I co-authored with Kenneth O. Boulton for Scarecrow Press. Sheldon also came out to Long Island to celebrate his 80th birthday in 2004 with the Oceanside Chorale (see photo), which I conducted in a Harnick/Hammerstein program, the finale of which was Sheldon’s own music and lyrics to “Take Care of One Another,” from his musical based Yevgeny Schwartz’s play, Dragons:  https://youtu.be/vnWMMS2Gwyg

Sperling’s program featured five excellent singers and a 6-piece combo he conducted from the piano, in excerpts from The Apple Tree, She Loves Me, The Rothschilds, Tenderloin, Fiorello, and of course Fiddler, with two surprises: the delightful song to Sheldon’s own music, “Garbage,” written for the 1959 Shoestring Revue; and, as a grand finale: “You’re Going Far” (with Cy Coleman) for the movie The Heartbreak Kid. In his witty and poignant commentary, Ted mentioned that the number of songs written for Fiddler and then cut from the show probably exceeded the number that remained by a factor of at least two.  Here are three of my favorites, that might have been but were not included in the program.  The first one Helene Williams and I sang as a duet for Sheldon when he attended my second lecture on Jewish Opera at Hebrew Union College, September 2, 2014:

“When Messiah Comes” – sung near the end by the Rabbi, then his son, then Tevye, then cut – https://youtu.be/lUC9_aGoZoY.

“Any Day Now” – a revolutionary song for Perchik, written for the film, but then cut – https://youtu.be/5AsIG-jhMIA.

“The Richest Man in Town” – my favorite Valentine’s Day song, cut in favor of “Miracle of Miracles,” as Jerome Robbins felt the show needed something more upbeat at that moment – https://youtu.be/lBfNaJBBsnE.

Press agent April Thibault is constantly sending me announcements, but one that particularly intrigued me was a new Boston Modern Opera Project (BMOP) CD #1097 of music by Paul Moravec (1957- ), whom I first met 22 years ago, introduced by tenor Gregory Mercer, who sang Sacco for me (in Sacco and Vanzetti) in 2001 and a Moravec cantata in Garden City a year later. I was intrigued to learn about Moravec’s other works since then, in an interview I conducted with him July 1, 2024 at his Glen Cove home on J.P. Morgan’s East Island, during which he gifted or loaned me scores and recordings of several of his numerous (over 200) works. So numerous, in fact, that I’ve begun to hesitate to call myself “Long Island’s most prolific living composer,” which I have been since the death of Elie Siegmeister in 1991, and perhaps still am in terms of number of works (265), but probably not in numbers of notes!

The Port Washington Library has 26 CDs containing substantial works by Moravec, often stunningly performed – especially his Montserrat Cello Concerto, exquisitely played by Matt Haimovitz, on the same album as his Clarinet Concerto, performed by David Krakauer, both with Gil Rose conducting the BMOP. This was Moravec’s second work for Krakauer, the first being his Tempest Fantasy for clarinet and piano trio, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Lyrical in places, the impression it gives is indeed tempestuous, reminding me of a story I had heard before, and heard again from Moravec, about our mutual teacher Leon Kirchner, who was asked by some elderly ladies in the audience: “Did you have all that music in your head, before writing it out?” “Yes.” “Well, it must have felt really good to get it out, didn’t it!?”

Other fascinating works I got to know by Moravec include his moving Underground Railroad cantata, Sanctuary Road, on texts by William Still, edited by Mark Campbell – who also wrote the libretto for their opera The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s film starring Jack Nicholson.  Excerpts from that opera appear on the new BMOP CD; but one can’t really get a complete impression of the work without watching it in its entirety, and following a score.  The video which Moravec graciously sent me is strongly sung, but unsubtitled.

Two even more interesting Moravec works I got a chance to study are the scores of his vaudeville, Danse Russe, and his first opera, The Letter, with libretto by Terry Teachout (1956-2022) based on a story and a play by Somerset Maugham, which was also made into a classic movie, directed by William Wyler, starring Bette Davis – who had just had an affair with each other, the chemistry from which dazzles the viewer. Patricia Racette must have been terrific in the principal role when the work debuted at Santa Fe Opera in 2009. Unfortunately, Washington Post critic Anne Midgette gave it a very unsympathetic review, and except for one aria at an Opera America concert in 2019, it has not (yet) been revived.  Though schematic, the tonal construction of the work effectively depicts the main character’s bipolarity with bitonality. And Moravec is no stranger to mental illness, having personally endured clinical depression (when Dartmouth denied him tenure) to the point where he needed electro-shock therapy to “reset,” to use the word he himself uses to describe it. I only wish that treatment had been as successful with our mutual friend, composer Joseph Pehrson (1950-2020). In any case, I’m sure that Professor Larry Newland’s having hired Moravec to teach at Adelphi in 1999 (the very year my opera The Birthday of the Bank was performed there), on whose faculty he’s been successfully ensconced ever since, also had a lot to do with his successful recovery.

Terry Teachout was also the librettist for Moravec’s Danse Russe, on the origins of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, commissioned and premiered by Philadelphia’s Center City Opera Theater in 2011. I found the libretto and its setting (which quotes Stravinsky extensively, of course) to be quite amusing, deficient only in the setting of the name of the impresario: Diaghilev, which all Russian speakers would know is pronounced with three syllables, not four. (A comparable example is Kurt Weill’s showstopper song for Danny Kaye, “Tchaikovsky,” from Lady in the Dark, which sets to music the name of the Russian composer Lyadov as if it were pronounced as three syllables, when in fact it should be just two.  The mispronunciations of Russian names in Lee Hoiby’s 1964 opera, Natalia Petrovna, based on Turgeniev’s A Month in the Country, were so legion that my mother and I sent him a list – and he corrected them, inviting us to dinner and the Manhattan School of Music revival of the work in 2004!)

Two small works of Moravec’s are slated for performance at an informal get-together celebrating the 25th anniversary of Court Street Music in Valley Stream, August 3, 2024: his Evocation, a wedding piece for violin and piano; and a setting of Fall of Leaves, a poem by George Shirley, the first black tenor to sing at the Met, whom I had the great pleasure to work with when he sang the European premiere of my opera The Family Man in Berlin in 1985.  We are hoping that Paul can attend. And you are invited too! Write us at LJLehrmanDMA@gmail.com for an invitation.

This is the 36^th article for SoundWordSight.com by Dr. Leonard J. Lehrman, whose 75^th birthyear is being celebrated this year in concerts March 10 at Bryant Library, posted at tinyurl.com/20240310BryantLib

– see also

https://antonmediagroup.com/live-music-highlights-composers-return-to-roslyn-library/ –

…and August 20 at Hewlett-Woodmere Library, featuring 5 singers, Beth Jucovy and Dance Visions NY, seen recently in a brilliant program at Great Neck Community Education Center on May 9, 2024.  Also the publication this summer by Dorrance Press of his Continuator: The Autobiography of a Socially-Conscious, Cosmopolitan Composer.

His 1976 opera Sima, dedicated in part to Nadia Boulanger, is slated for its N.Y. City premiere at Theatre for the New City in November 2025. He dearly hopes that Neal Goren and/or Gil Rose and/or Ted Sperling will someday conduct his completion of Blitzstein’s opera Sacco and Vanzetti, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2022.

The contents of his former website – ljlehrman.artists-in-residence.com – are now to be found at https://LeonardJLehrman.com.