In a reflective entry in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Weill authority David Drew helped to place the transplanted German’s “divided” career in perspective when he pointed out that even with his sharper-edged collaborations with Brecht, Weill had also aimed to please a particular audience in a particular time and place.3 According to Drew, Weill discovered with Die Dreigroschenoper “that a ‘serious’ modern composer could still reach the broad masses without sacrifice of originality or contemporaneity.” Similarly, when discussing the Broadway works, Drew helped to clarify the altered aesthetic transformation between the “cultural implications” of a work like Mahagonny and the Broadway period: “The creation of ‘works of art’ was not Weill’s primary concern…. Weill now attempted to subordinate all aesthetic criteria to purely pragmatic and populist ones. Musical ideas, and dramatic ones too, were not to be judged in terms of originality or intrinsic interest … but in terms of their power to evoke, immediately and unambiguously, the required emotional response from a given audience.”
Drew went on to remark that Weill continued to take risks on Broadway in dramatic form or subject matter. Even in the conventional One Touch of Venus Weill took a risk by allowing dance to tell a story and by teaming up with Broadway newcomers, librettist S. J. Perelman (1904–1979) and lyricist Ogden Nash (1902–1971). But Drew seemed to share the view held by even those sympathetic to Weill’s American adventure when he wrote that Broadway “exacted from him a degree of self-sacrifice greater than any that would have been demanded by a totalitarian ministry of culture.” In Europe, Weill was a leading modernist and a composer “accustomed to measure his talents and achievements against those of the most eminent of his German contemporaries, Paul Hindemith.” In America, “the composer whom he now saw as his chief rival was Richard Rodgers.” Nevertheless, Weill’s “aural imagination” and “highly cultivated sense of musical character and theatrical form” enabled him to secure “a special place in the history of American popular music.”
Drew and other Weill biographers assumed that Weill sacrificed his potential for growth and artistic achievement (albeit willingly) in order to serve “a larger interest than his own, namely that of the American musical theatre.” In any event, the absence of subsidized American theater and the scarce opportunities for new works to be performed in what he viewed as artistically stagnant American operatic institutions allowed Weill no place to turn but to the somewhat restricted world of Broadway.
In its English translation by Blitzstein, Die Dreigroschenoper has demonstrated its durability in the American musical theater repertory as The Threepenny Opera. Of the works originally composed for American audiences perhaps only Street Scene (1947), a modest success in its own time with 148 performances, and the comparably successful Knickerbocker Holiday (1938) and Lost in the Stars (1949) (168 and 273 performances, respectively) have gained increasing popular and critical acclaim (in the years since the first edition of Enchanted Evenings, Weill performances have become increasingly common). In fact, Street Scene has achieved a reasonably secure place in the operatic repertory. Meanwhile, despite an increasing number of performances on American and European stages, neither of Weill’s wartime hits, Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus, has returned for a full-scale staged Broadway production. It is indeed a peculiar legacy that Weill’s popularly designed American works remain unrevived, if not revivable.4
Despite its long neglect, Lady in the Dark can be found in nearly every list of notable musicals. While it failed to make Lehman Engel’s short list, this pioneering critic confidently predicted that it “will come back again and again.”5One Touch of Venus was greeted as “an unhackneyed and imaginative musical that spurns the easy formulas of Broadway” and “the best score by Mr. Weill that we recall.”6 Even Weill, in a letter to Ira Gershwin, expressed the opinion that he had for the most part succeeded in producing an audience-worthy show: “I was rather pleased to find, looking at it cold-bloodedly, that inspite [sic] of all the faults and mistakes it is a very good and interesting show and that it holds the audience all through once they sit through the first 15 minutes which are pretty awful.”7 Despite such public and private endorsements, Venus, like its wartime predecessor, has so far failed to establish itself in the Broadway repertory. The issues raised by Venus’s demise deserve more attention than they have so far received.
In his final years Weill himself seemed to repudiate his Broadway hits when he interpreted his creative evolution in America to show its culmination in Street Scene. In his notes to its recording the composer confesses that he “learned a great deal about Broadway and its audience” as a result of his first effort, Johnny Johnson, “a continuation of the [European] formula.”8 According to Weill’s revisionism, Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus, the former especially “with its three little one-act operas,” were merely way stations on the road to the development of “something like an American opera.”9 Just as Gershwin opted for a Broadway home for Porgy and Bess and Rodgers was content to present his brand of opera (Carousel) on the Great White Way, Weill concluded that his Broadway operas “could only take place on Broadway, because Broadway represents the living theatre in this country.”10 Weill continues: “[It] should, like the products of other opera-civilizations, appeal to large parts of the audience. It should have all the necessary ingredients of a ‘good show.’”11
Additional evidence that Weill appreciated, or at least understood, audience-pleasing shows can be found in his remarks to Ira Gershwin regarding Oklahoma! Weill had seen the tryouts in New Haven and was surprised that “they still haven’t got a second act” (although he quickly added that “they don’t seem to need one”).12 After praising Rouben Mamoulian’s work, the production as a whole, the direction and the songs (“just perfect for this kind of show”), and Hammerstein’s singable lyrics, Weill made this final assessment: “On the whole, the show is definitely designed for a very low audience … and that, in my opinion explains the terrific success.”13
Two Compromising Ladies
According to theater lore, Moss Hart (1904–1961) wrote I Am Listening when his psychiatrist advised him to cease his successful but inhibiting collaboration with George S. Kaufman and write a play of his own. As Hart tells it: “My psychoanalyst made me resolve that the next idea I had, whether it was good or lousy, I’d carry through.”14 In fact, three years before the creative crisis that led to Lady in the Dark, Kaufman and Hart had drafted the first act of a musical based on psychoanalysis starring Marlene Dietrich before settling on I’d Rather Be Right with Rodgers and Hart, and George M. Cohan as Franklin Roosevelt. I Am Listening also shares much in common with the Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers film musical Carefree (1938), in which Rogers plays a woman similar to Liza Elliott who “can’t make up her mind” about marriage, a problem solved in the film by psychiatrist Astaire when he falls in love with her.15
One Touch of Venus is based on Thomas Anstey Guthrie’s novella The Tinted Venus (1885).16 Sources disagree as to how Weill learned about this relatively obscure work of fiction by the man who published under the pseudonym F. Anstey, but most credit him as the person who persuaded Cheryl Crawford to produce the show.17 Crawford then asked Sam and Bella Spewack, who had earlier worked on an abandoned Weill project, The Opera from Mannheim (1937), to write a libretto; light-verse poet Nash, a Broadway novice, would provide the lyrics. In August the Spewacks drafted the first act of One Man’s Venus. After at least five lyrics and as many as eight songs, the Spewack libretto, now Bella’s alone, was dismissed as beyond repair, and a new book was commissioned from Perelman, best known as the author of the Marx Brothers screenplays Monkey Business (1931) and Horsefeathers (1932), but untested in a book musical.18
Crawford articulates the causes for her dissatisfaction with Bella Spewack’s libretto: “The idea that had enticed me was the irreconcilable differences between the world of mundane, conventional human beings and the free untrammeled world of the gods. But this theme had no
t been developed.”19 In Perelman’s rewrite Anstey’s Victorian England was transformed into contemporary Manhattan. Foremost among other significant alterations was the character of Venus herself, more threatening and forbidding than sensual in Anstey’s novella, and a goddess who would return to her stone form for hours at a time. Rather than succumbing to her demands (as opposed to charms) the unfortunate barber (Leander Tweddle) remains steadfast in his love for his eventually understanding fiancée (Matilda Collum). By appealing to Venus’s vanity, Leander in the end manages to trick her into relinquishing the ring that gave her life.20
Moss Hart. © AL HIRSCHFELD. Reproduced by arrangement with Hirschfeld’s exclusive representative, the MARGO FEIDEN GALLERIES LTD., NEW YORK. WWW.ALHIRSCHFELD.COM
Throughout his career Weill rarely failed to surround himself with strong artistic figures. In Germany he collaborated with Brecht and Georg Kaiser. For the American musical stage he worked with a series of distinguished partners as the following list attests: Paul Green (Johnny Johnson); Maxwell Anderson (Knickerbocker Holiday and Lost in the Stars); Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes (Street Scene); and Alan Jay Lerner (Love Life). Similarly, the productions of Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus evolved under dynamic leadership, and his principal collaborators, Hart and Gershwin (Lady), Nash and Perelman (Venus), all possessed strong artistic personalities and identities. The One Touch of Venus team could boast an especially impressively deep talent roster. The previous year alone Crawford produced the immensely popular revival of Porgy and Bess, Elia Kazan directed his first memorable production, Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, and Agnes de Mille had choreographed Copland’s ballet classic Rodeo. Only six months before Venus came to life in 1943 de Mille had gained enormous Broadway distinction as the choreographer of Oklahoma!21
Even in this venerable company the composer could still play a major role in the creative process of a musical, although he would not occupy the center stage enjoyed by Mozart and Da Ponte, Verdi and Boito, and Wagner. Theater critics appreciated the imagination of the Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus teams, but music critics who focused on Weill felt betrayed by his collaboration with the enemy, men and women of the theater who helped Weill to sell out. Critics Virgil Thomson and Samuel Barlow, respectively, accused Weill of banality and phoniness and wrote that the transplanted European had lost his sophistication and his satirical punch in his efforts to please the lower class inhabitants of Broadway.22
Considering the experience and prestige of his collaborators, especially Hart and Gershwin, it should come as no surprise that Weill would be asked to defer to the judgment of these collaborators during the writing of Lady in the Dark.23 As a result, one complete dream in Lady (first described as the “Day Dream” and later as the “Hollywood Dream”) was rejected before its completion, allegedly to help trim escalating costs. To add pizzazz (and perhaps to avoid racial stereotypes), the “Minstrel Dream” metamorphosed into the “Circus Dream.” “The Saga of Jenny” was a response to Hart’s and producer Sam H. Harris’s assessment that Gertrude Lawrence’s final number was not funny enough, and the patter number which preceded it, “Tschaikowsky,” was added as a vehicle to feature the talented new star Danny Kaye.
Crawford credits de Mille with many of the small cuts in the One Touch of Venus ballets, summarizes the problem of the original ending, and explains how Weill’s collaborators achieved a satisfactory solution:
The bacchanal of the nymphs, satyrs, nyads and dryads who carry Venus off was very effective, but it left the audience hanging. It seemed very unsatisfactory for Venus to disappear into the clouds, leaving the poor barber all alone: the ending needed ooomph, something upbeat. It was Agnes who thought of having Venus come back as an “ordinary” human girl, dressed in a cute little dress and hat—a sort of reincarnation.24
This new ending necessitated the shortening of Weill’s Bacchanale ballet, which de Mille (as remembered by Crawford) considered “the best thing he’d done since Threepenny Opera” and Weill himself treasured as “the finest piece of orchestral music he had ever written.”25 But since Weill “wanted a success” and was “predominantly a theatre man,” he acquiesced to de Mille’s suggestion.
It is likely that the musical starting point for both Lady and Venus were songs that Weill had written for earlier contexts. Both of these songs, Lady’s “My Ship” and Venus’s “Westwind,” would become pivotal to their respective musical stories. Since “My Ship” was originally the only song Hart had in mind when he drafted his play I Am Listening, it is not surprising that this was the first song Weill wrote for the show.26
In the midst of his sketches for Lady, including a draft for “My Ship,” Weill sketched a tune that with some modifications would eventually become “Westwind” (Example 7.2a, p. 148). In the early stages Weill used its melody solely for the “Venus Entrance” music (and he would continue to label this tune as such throughout his orchestral score). Long after the entire show had taken shape, the music of the future “Westwind” was still reserved for Venus.27 At a relatively late stage Weill decided to show Savory’s total captivation with Venus musically by adopting her tune as his own. After their first meeting his identity is now fully submerged in the woman he idealizes.28
The extant manuscript sources and material of Lady in the Dark provide an unusually rich glimpse into the compositional process of a musical: Hart’s complete original play I Am Listening, two revised scenes for this play, and two typescript outlines for two dreams not included in this play; Gershwin’s lyrics drafts, including those for the discarded “Zodiac” song; and two hundred pages of Weill’s sketches and drafts. Also extant are twenty letters between Weill and Gershwin exchanged between September 1940 and February 1944 (“with random annotations” by Gershwin in 1967) that occasionally reveal important information and attitudes about the compositional process.29
Gershwin had traveled from Los Angeles to New York in early May 1940 to work with Hart and Weill, and the letters from Weill began one or two weeks after Gershwin’s return in August. The two Weill letters in September are especially valuable because they precede the opening night (the following January 23). On September 2 Weill sets the context for his following suggestions with a budget report: the show was $25,000 above its projected $100,000. Hart and Hassard Short “read the play to the boys in the office,” who were “crazy about the show” but thought “that the bar scene and the Hollywood dream had nothing to do with the play.”30 Hart asked Weill to cut the Hollywood Dream, and the composer agreed to do this if Hart agreed to delete the bar scene as well.
Did this compromise breach Weill’s artistic sensibilities? Apparently Weill did not think so. He explains his positive reaction to the excision of the Hollywood Dream:
I began to see certain advantages. It is obvious that this change would be very good for the play itself because it would mean that we go from the flashback scene directly into the last scene of the play. The decision which Liza makes in the last scene would be an immediate result of the successful analysis. The balance between music and book would be very good in the second act because we would make the flashback scene a completely musical scene.31
Although Weill regretted losing “an entire musical scene and some very good material,” he saw artistic benefits as well as financial ones, and agreed to these changes.
After more discussion on the relationship between the Hollywood Dream and the Hollywood sequence, both eventually discarded, Weill turned to the “Circus Dream.” Here Weill was less acquiescent to Short’s suggestions. Although he understood that “Gertie” (Gertrude Lawrence) might remain dissatisfied until he provided “a really funny song” for her, Weill was not yet ready to abandon his “Zodiac” song and defended its place in the show to Gershwin. Although Weill acknowledged that the “Zodiac” song “is not the kind of broad entertainment which Hassard has in mind,” he concluded that “it is a very original, high class song of the kind which you and I should have in a show and fo
r which we will get a lot of credit.” Because Weill also recognized “the necessity to give Gertie a good, solid, entertaining, humorous song in the Circus dream,” he offered to make the “Zodiac” song “musically lighter, more on the line of a patter, and to think about another song for Gertie.”
On September 14 Weill again commented on the evolving Circus Dream:
So Moss and Hassard suggested that we give the Zodiak song back to Randy and I thought this might be good news for you because that’s what we always wanted. Here is Moss’s idea: the Zodiak song would become Randy’s defense speech, just the way you had originally conceived it, but we should try to work Gertie into it…. When they have won over everybody to their cause, Liza should go into a triumphant song…. That would give Liza her show-stopping (??) song near the end of the dream and at a moment where she is triumphant and which allows her to be as gay or sarcastic as you want.32
Lady in the Dark. “Circus Dream.” Gertrude Lawrence sitting on the left, Danny Kaye on the horse at right (1941). Photograph: Vandamm Studio. Museum of the City of New York. Theater Collection. Gift of the Burns Mantle Estate.
From Ira Gershwin’s 1967 annotations that accompany his manuscripts as well his published comments in Lyrics on Several Occasions, we learn that the “Circus Dream” was originally planned as a “Minstrel Dream” and “an environment of burnt cork and sanded floor” was transformed “to putty nose and tanbark.”33 Gershwin divides the “Zodiac” into two parts, “No Matter under What Star You’re Born” and “Song of the Zodiac,” “both of which were discarded to make way for “The Saga of Jenny.”34 He also notes that he and Weill “hadn’t as yet introduced ‘Tschaikovsky.’”35
Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Page 19