BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY

Inspired by New Year's Eve at the New York Philharmonic this program celebrates Bernstein's contributions to the Great White Way, including songs and music from On the Town and West Side Story.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)

Overture to Candide (1956)

Lillian Hellman conceived a theater piece based on Voltaire’s Candide as early as 1950, but it was not until 1956 that the project materialized. She originally intended the work to be a play with incidental music, which she asked Leonard Bernstein to compose, but his enthusiasm for the subject was so great that the venture swelled into a full-blown comic operetta; Tyrone Guthrie was enlisted as director and Richard Wilbur wrote most of the song lyrics. Candide was first seen in a pre-Broadway tryout at Boston’s Colonial Theatre on October 29, 1956 (just days after Bernstein’s appointment as co-music director of the New York Philharmonic), and opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York on December 1. The Overture captures perfectly the wit, brilliance, and slapstick tumult of the operetta.


Selections and Three Dance Episodes from On the Town (1944)

On the Town, Bernstein’s first musical, concerns three sailors during World War II determined to see everything in New York City during their 24-hour shore leave. On the subway, one of the sailors falls in love with the poster picture of Miss Turnstiles, and the boys set out to find her. Their efforts take them all over the city until they discover Miss Turnstiles on Coney Island, where they learn that she is not the glamorous girl they expected, but a belly dancer.

Chip tries to speed up his tour by catching a cab driven by the aggressively love-starved Brunhilde Esterhazy — Hildy, for short — but she is less concerned with his travel plans than with having him Come Up to My Place. She catalogs her domestic virtues in the hot swing number, I Can Cook Too. 

Gabey makes a date with his dream girl and sings Lucky To Be Me as he waits for her in Times Square.

The “Three Dance Episodes” include The Great Lover, which captures the sailors’ high spirits, Lonely Town (Pas de Deux), based on the expressive song of that title, and Times Square — 1944, a joyous fantasia on New York, New York, the show’s hit tune.

Selections from Wonderful Town (1953)

Wonderful Town is the story of two sisters from Columbus, Ohio who move to New York City to further their careers as a writer (Ruth) and an actress (Eileen), and find there a series of humorous misadventures and broken love affairs. Wonderful Town opened at the Winter Garden to excellent reviews on February 25, 1953 (George Abbott directed) and ran for 559 performances; the show won a Tony as Best Musical.

Ruth and Eileen, fresh off the train from Columbus, are tricked into renting an abysmal basement apartment that is continuously rattled by the subway passing below. Unable to sleep on their first night in the big city, they sing that they wish they had never left Ohio.

In A Little Bit in Love, Eileen sings wistfully of her first love in her new hometown.

As the story nears its end, Eileen finds a job singing at the Greenwich Village Vortex, where she belts out the infectious Wrong Note Rag.

Three Dance Variations from Fancy Free (1944)

The ballet Fancy Free is set in a deserted street in lower Manhattan in 1944. Three sailors on shore leave burst onto the scene, meet two girls in a bar, and, in Three Dance Variations, have a competition, judged by the girls, to decide which two of them will have companions for the evening. The first sailor does a boisterous Galop, the second a lyrical Waltz, and the third a sinuous Latin Danzon.


Selections from West Side Story (1957)

In the story, Riff, leader of the Jets, an “American” street gang, determines to challenge Bernardo, head of the rival Sharks, a group of young Puerto Ricans, to a rumble. Riff asks Tony, his best friend and a co-founder of the Jets, to help. Tony has been growing away from the gang, and he senses better things in his future (Something’s Coming), but agrees. The Jets and the Sharks meet that night at a dance in the gym, where they engage in competitive dancing (Mambo) and Tony falls in love at first sight with Maria, Bernardo’s sister, recently arrived from Puerto Rico. Later that night, Tony meets Maria on the fire escape of her apartment (Tonight). The next day, Tony visits Maria at the bridal shop where she works, and they enact a touching wedding ceremony. Tony promises Maria he will try to stop the rumble, but he is unsuccessful and becomes involved in the fighting. He kills Bernardo. Maria learns that Tony has slain her brother. Tony comes to her apartment, but she cannot send him away and they long for a place free from prejudice (Somewhere). Tony leaves and hides in Doc’s drugstore. Maria convinces Anita, Bernardo’s girl, of her love for Tony, and Anita agrees to tell Tony that the Sharks intend to hunt him down. She is so fiercely taunted by the Jets at the drugstore, however, that she spitefully tells Tony that Maria has been killed. Tony numbly wanders the streets and meets Maria. At the moment they embrace, he is shot dead. The Jets and the Sharks appear from the shadows, drawn together by the tragedy. They carry off the body of Tony, followed by Maria.