Bernstein: A White House Cantata
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Free Music Notes for Bernstein: A White House Cantata
Free Music Review: The best musical theatre score of the 1970's
Hit: 5 Stars
Do yourself a favor and listen to one of the most complex theatre scores ever written. With lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Leonard Bernstein, this cd will haunt you for the rest of your life. I was an actor living in New York when this show opened; however, I was on the road in "Jesus Christ Superstar" and didn't get to see any of its few performances. From the things I have read about the production, "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" suffered from lack of cohesiveness and too much control for Bernstein and Lerner. It went through two directors who didn't have a great track record then or now. If only Jerome Robbins hadn't deserted Broadway for the ballet world, who knows what this rich score would have harvested? All we have now is this cd and alas it is not complete.
In this lamentable conservative era, some brave Broadway producer should hire Joe Mantello to direct and Kristen Chenoweth, Brian Stoke Mitchell, Billy Porter and Audra MacDonald to star. Broadway would have the artistic shot in the arm it so desparately needs.
Free Music Review: Haunting, forgotten score.
Hit: 5 Stars
"A White House Cantata" is a vitally important piece of work. It is the only document we have of one of Broadway's most legendary flops (rivalled only by Irving Berlin's "Mr. President"), "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." Bernstein and Lerner spent four years ('72-'76) working on the score and book, then obtained nearly a million dollars from Coca Cola to stage the show. The result? An unmitigated disaster for all involved. The reason? Lerner's characteristically convoluted, muddled book. The score and lyrics were almost universally praised.Bernstein forbid a cast recording after "1600" closed following only seven performances on Broadway. Until now, only "Take Care of This House" obtained a life of its own; the rest of the score, though parts were later recycled by Bernstein in other pieces, languished unheard. Finally, someone has been interested enough to take approximately half of Bernstein's massive score and make an absolutely superb recording of it. "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" is, at last, available (albeit in a drastically abridged form) for those who might have been wondering what exactly the show was about.
The score is a masterpiece and this recording is first-rate. Though many reviewers have complained about the "operatic" performances on the disc, Bernstein set Lerner's lyrics in an operatic fashion. Lerner, a superb interpreter of his own songs, said numerous times that the songs in "1600" were the only ones he wasn't able to sing. The performances are magnificent, exactly as Bernstein intended for them to be sung. This wasn't written to be standard Broadway fare. Patricia Routledge, who played the First Ladies during the brief Broadway run, said she felt one of the show's flaws was that Lerner was trying to write another musical while Bernstein was writing a grand opera. She had a point.
The orchestrations (by Bernstein and two others) are superb, coloring the music to perfection. The conducting and vocals are fantastic, and if there is any doubt that "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," despite its confusing plot, was a major achievement (musically and lyrically), this recording should dispel that idea. Lerner's lyrics are witty, literate, by turns hilarious and poignant: a tremendous display of lyrical virtuosity. Bernstein's score contains some of the most vital, diverse and accomplished music of his career. No wonder the musical's failure was such a crushing blow to him; he had to have known how good the score was, and to have it lost after only seven performances was a shame.
"A White House Cantata" is a unique experience, and worth every penny of its price.
Free Music Review: A flop, maybe, but still better onstage
Hit: 2 Stars
One of my fondest memories of going to the theatre as a kid was the opening number of "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" entitled "Rehearse." Even though the show was done eons ago and I only saw it once, that Bernstein melody (rhythmic, syncopated, exciting) has always stayed with me. How disappointing then to not find that song on this album. The show was about a theatrical ensemble presenting to the audience the history of the White House, and the songs were divided between those of the ensemble "rehearsing" and the actual enactments themselves. Nagano and his producers have made the decision to exclude all but the latter from their cantata, and for simplicity's sake this would seem to make sense. However, the historical numbers on their own prove not to be very good. In fairness, the other half of the show may not have been all that brilliant either. ("1600..." was, after all, a notorious flop.) But my dim, adolescent recollection was that it all worked much better in performance. Bernstein's melodies are, for the most part, uninspired (except for the haunting "Take Care of This House" and the jazzy "Lud's Wedding") and Lerner's lyrics are arch, forced, and unnecessarily complicated. (Could I do better? Hell, no; this is simply my most humble opinion.) Thomas Hampson is in splendid voice (as always), but June Anderson is unfortunately humourless, particularly in the tour de force number in which she plays competing First Ladies. (I'll never forget Patricia Routledge's near genius interpretation of this on stage.) Let's hope someone will come along and do a full recording of all the material from the show, one that lacks the pretentiousness that so often sabotages this recording.Free Music Review: A Week of Flops Revisited
Hit: 3 Stars
It was Thursday, May 6, 1976 and I was in New York for a business trip and what was to become my weekend of Broadway flops. Since, I was a last minute replacement on the trip; I hadn't made any plans for my free time, which meant I had to take my chances on the TKTS line. Thursday evening I got tickets to REX at the Lunt-Fontanne with Nichol Williamson and Glenn Close. Friday, I headed uptown to the Harkness to see Robert Morse in So, Long 174th Street. And Saturday evening, it was Pacific Overtures at the Winter Garden. REX was regrettable, Robert Morse was fun, and Pacific Overtures became one of my all-time favorites.But it was the Saturday matinee of Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the Mark Hellinger that I had to tell everyone about when I got back to Saint Louis. At the time I didn't realize that the show closed that day and that I was be one of the few people to actually get to see it. To be honest, except for Bernstein's music and some of the performances the show itself was totally forgettable. Sitting in the theater, I remember thinking that the show would really be better on the cast album.
So why couldn't I wait to tell everyone about it? Well, it was just one of those once in a lifetime theatrical experiences. The audience that day was sparse. It seemed like there were more performers on stage. Although I had a great seat...center orchestra with no one around me in all directions - I had a feeling that the producers had been giving tickets away on the street in an attempt to pad the house. In the left section there was a large Italian family group - grandma to babes in arms. In the middle of the first act mama opened a basket she had brought and began passing out plates of food to the family. The resulting melee attracted more attention than the performance on stage. Even the actors had to see what was happening. So, how could you forget the experience like that?
Unfortunately my hopes of the cast album went unfulfilled, though all the other flops and near flops I saw that week were eventually preserved on original cast recordings in LP, cassette and CD formats. Over the years, I've heard rumors that in his lifetime Bernstein had stopped attempts to record or revive the show because he had borrowed so much of the score for other projects.
Now we have The White House Cantata. It is a brave attempt, but in terms of recreating 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue it is more of a failure than the original show. I love Thomas Hampson and June Anderson on the opera stage, but 1600, like West Side Story, Candide and the other Bernstein shows, was not written as an opera. It was intended to be a bold and brassy Broadway show, and I would give anything to hear it done again by the likes of Ken Howard, Patricia Routledge, Gilbert Price and Emily Yancy.
Free Music Review: A mixed but decided blessing.
Hit: 4 Stars
I'll counter-intuitively start with the bottom line: this album is a delightful listen, and is necessary for serious fans of musical theatre as well as Bernstein admirers.What precedes the bottom line, though, is less pleasant. This isn't a terribly theatrical recording -- DG chose to eschew singing actors (such as those who were so vibrant in the original production of this failed show) in favor of legitimate singers. Moreover, there is little dialogue preserved (though I admit that I would not like to see any songs omitted to make room for it). As a result, the score comes across much more strongly as music than as a representation of a theatrical event, and some of the lyrics aren't given their full due.
But it's still hard to dislike the album. June Anderson has been roundly criticized for her First Lady, but she's very good on all of the songs that don't require her to excel at comedy. The showstopper "Duet For One" does have such a requirement, but as it has already been brilliantly recorded by Judy Kaye, Anderson's botch job is less of a tragedy.
The other lead, Thomas Hampson, is a fine singer with real presence on his major numbers. Everyone else in the cast does well enough, and the technical elements of the recording are fine.
Back to the bottom line: the score sparkles, and it has been given exciting life by this cast. It isn't the recording we might have hoped to hear, but what we now have is priceless.