The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  As for Trouble in Tahiti and my crying – it was beautifully performed by Alice Ghostley, and it is a truly remarkable piece of work – and I had that feeling of closeness, and desire for us to be working with you, and the sadness of the pressure of time, and everything all at once overwhelming me.

  The “personal prayer” – your notes about us – is our prayer too. Again, our thank yous.

  Love,

  Betty

  353. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein

  Via Salaria 366, Rome, Italy

  6 May 1955

  Darling Bubbles,

  Rome is beautiful as I have never seen it: blue blue sky, cool air, and the warm sea, and everything blooming away luxuriantly. I am glad I came; but I miss you here. Perverty it is, of course, as is to be expected, but it is not all so, and I am holding my own very well indeed. I have seen a lot of [Gina] Lollobrigida, a gem of a girl: I went to her singing lesson, and watched her work on her current film, and all with Serenade in mind. Remember that one? It's all in the works again, since they fired their Doggyinthewindow composer; Bob Joseph arrived in Milano with Henry Margolies (a charming man, actually, rich and quiet and sensitive) and we have been talking Serenade.107 The indicated combination would be Lolly and Luchino a marvelous combo, and both are very eager about it. I am sure that with the right activity Luchino can get to America. I realize not that Reiner spoke through her ass when she said that Luchino could not be gotten over; she is a big speaker with no authority for one half of what she says. I am sure something will work out. And I would be happy for a postponement of a year on Candide: I'd like to have that time to let it cook, and see what should really be done with it. It's wrong the way it is now, that's all I know. The tape has not arrived yet, so I know nothing of the audition sound. I wait every day for word from Lil about May, and I could go to Paris or wherever, but no word from her. Soon it will be too late. I'm a bit sick of the whole thing, and would adore to get going on Serenade and the Münch symphony.108

  I will leave here Saturday to go back to Milano for the opening of the Saint [of Bleecker Street]: then I have to go to Geneva, of all places, to rehearse the Israel orch there (13th–15th), then a concert in Trieste (16th–18th), then to Florence (19th–22nd) then to Genoa to pick up the Israel gang and make the tour. That's the restful prospect at the moment. I wish you were here to do it all with me. Who's going to writhe out front during my Mozart concerto? But meanwhile I am basking in the Roman sun, and having a sort of social life, and thinking about nothing at all. Lunched with the Roberts yesterday, who sent you dearest love. Tonight cocktail party for me at Ruggiero's followed by dinner at the Chisholms. Thrilling. I spent an afternoon at the American Academy hearing the young music, very exciting indeed. Made me want to compose. Saw a revue, ghastly intellectual type, heard Bricktop, saw La Brignone [Lilla Brignone] act in a bad play of [Curzio] Malaparte, etc. I am sneezy with spring blossoms, but not too much so. The cats are all in the garden (say that in six languages) and this is a beautiful house with divine food and comforts and all and all.

  I loved both your letters, and ate up every word, and read them over and over. All is as I feared about Tahiti. I realized from the notice that the opera had been reduced to a comic aria by Ghostley. You are right in everything you say about it: the same was true this summer in Westport. I am sure that a recording with Ghostley would be ill-advised, despite her talent: because on a record the vocal aspect only is heard, and that won't do for the touching parts. Why won't people realize that it is the touching parts that the opera is about? The rest is only either comment or diversion. I'd love to see you direct it one day. Thanks for not letting them put in the Trio before the office scene: what a cheap amateur notion! The office set simply has to be ready, and that's all. I do hope Heinsheimer will not be high-handed again about the recording. If it is done I should conduct it, and only if it is well planned out with the right cast. He's one for getting things on at all costs.

  I've just had word that the Candide tape has arrived in Milano, so I will hear it shortly.

  Please engage a suite for Charlie Roth at Bellevue.109 I can't wait to break his four-time-fixed nose.

  I'm terribly worried about Burtie – no word in over a month, and nothing since my answer to his desperate letter. I wrote him again begging for a word, but nothing. Maybe you should send him a telegram, and insist on some word from him. I really am very troubled about him. Please did [i.e. do] it.

  Give my congrats to Marian and Julian (so glad theirs is ugly) and to Pat and Roald.110 Yesterday a lady told me to rub my left little finger on her nose and then said we were sure to have a boy. No end to the ways of determining sex. Are you bigger and biggering? I hope it's not too hot in NY, and that you stay comfortable through these months. I'm dying to hear about the summer house. Write me care of Finzi, Via Manzoni 5.

  Yes I am interested in a '52 Jaguar! Is it openable? Let's get it, but make sure someone looks carefully at it to see if it's in good condition, etc. And it really must be a convertible, don't you think? Art Stanton was a darling and acted quickly, but I have changed my mind. Too much trouble for too little worth.

  I miss you my darling, and long to come home and see what the hell has happened to that little stranger Jamie, and just have a nice long endless booze hour. Keep well and happy, and un sacco di love. Di nuovo,

  Lennuhtt.

  What do you mean, Shirley quit her job? What will she do instead?

  I can't tell you what the light is like at this moment on this terrace. And the birds sing in a glorious way. Luchino sends you dear love.

  Thanks for the Nation puzz!

  354. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein

  Grand Hotel Duomo, Milan, Italy

  10 May 1955

  Darling Madrina,

  I long for the sight of you, belly and all, and I'll push myself fast through these next three weeks of conductifying to get home fast. Rome was a delight: weather such as I have rarely beheld, and uninterruptedly, day after day. I got a lot of sun and garden-lolling, and got to the sea three times. There was also a great series of parties, nice people, mostly theatre kids, and it's the same all over. We played the snapping 123 game for hours and sang old Rodgers songs, figurati. I saw a lot of Lollo[brigida] and of Henry Margolies and ultimately of Arlene Francis and Marty Gable (the latter I don't like atall atall, but he's also a producer of Serenade) and it looks as if things are really cooking for Serenade with la Lollobrigida! I had her sing various times, and when she relaxes it is really lovely, though too small a voice for theatre: but she still has a year to train and make the voice grow. And now Luchino is involved as a possible director which would be great with Gina (and also great for the show, I think) and Candide can go fly a kite. I am not going to waste another year nohow.

  No word at all from Lillian [Hellman] or Ethel [Linder Reiner]: I sat waiting in Rome for a cable which would make me go to Paris, but nothing came, and thank goodness, since I got a bit of a rest. I don't understand what is happening. I began to take the Royal Jelly cure (Queen-bee) and it seems to be doing something: I don't need so much sleep, for example. But it's still too early to tell whether it works or not.

  I'm back at the Duomo for two days, just to clean up some items, and then I got to Geneva for a few days (I leave Thursday, stay until Saturday night, when I take a sleeper to Trieste). Address in Geneva: c/o de Toledo, 46 Quai Gustave Ador. Address in Trieste: Hotel Excelsior (15th, 16th, 17th). From the 18th through the 22nd I'm in Florence (Grand Hotel). The rest Helen has.

  I just got the Candide tapes (what a mess at the customs!) and I'm off to the Ricordis to hear them. Did I tell you that Maria [Callas] had an operation? You might drop her a note. She's fine now. Address: Corso Porta Nuova 10. Remember?

  I have to run: I'll keep writing. Much love to the kids, fijate, and a sacco to you.

  L

  355. Leonard Bernstein to Barbara and Philip Marcuse

  [En route from Trieste to Florence,
Italy]

  headed paper of the Excelsior Palace Hotel, Trieste

  18 May 1955

  Dearest Marcusi,

  Here I sit on a train from Trieste to Florence, at the moment stuck forever in the station of Venice, with apparently no intention of continuing, and I am writing you on stationery from the hotel as you can see, and I am thinking about you very hard. I keep wondering how Phil is (and what he is, now that he has become so fascinating and mysterious with the sort of problems I thought only I had); and I keep hoping you really will show up at Tanglefoot. Felicia has been with me for five weeks (up to about three weeks ago) and I am now doing the last lap by myself. Scala is over (it was a mistake to give 3 months to it: I lost my Milanese glamor) and I am currently doing concerts: last night in Trieste (they loved me in Trieste) and now Florence, and then I pick up the Israel orchestra, which is now touring Europe, and do concerts with them in Genoa, Florence again, Naples, Perugia, Bologna, and finally Milano; and then I go home, having dutifully cancelled Holland as per your instructions, to witness the birth of my newest human bean. I should be home the first week in June, and the Bean is expected about mid-June, and we go to the Berkshires beginning of July. Of course none of these dates will work out accurately, and it will be a typical Bernstein confusion; but somewhere in it all I hope to find word from you about your summer plans and your combined stati d'animo, as we say here. I love you as much as ever and miss you, and hope to see you. I was sorry to have had to turn down the very exciting proposals of Kellman, etc., for a Detroit Festival; but there must be a limit somewhere. I discovered in an old book of Chinese divination that my problem is one of self-limitation, and I am therefore working hard on it (as if I didn't know before out of my own private little Jewish divination what my problem was). Some day, preferably soon, I simply must decide what I'm going to be when I grow up.

  Love,

  Lenny

  Hugs to the kids.

  356. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein

  Grand Hotel, Florence, Italy

  23 May 1955

  Darling Bubb,

  Vera brought me your note, which was another breath of spring in primaveral Florence, as were Jamie's kisses. From Vera's description of Jamie and of her talk I don't know what to expect; apparently she has grown and changed so that I won't recognize her. It's a bit frightening to contemplate: I can't wait to see her again. To say nothing of you. Everyone at the parties and the green rooms is again, as before, stating with certainty that it will be a boy this time. Must mean it will surely be a girl. I'm prepared.

  The concerts in Trieste and Florence have both been extraordinary wows, like the great old days. The Prokofieff grows with each performance,111 and I have been playing a hell of a piano these days, I don't know why. Certainly I haven't practiced. At least now the piano-playing is over, and I now begin to concentrate on the Serenade and Isaac [Stern], which is less nerve-wracking, but harder work, because there is a great shortage of rehearsal time with the Jew orchestra. Off to Genoa tomorrow, Sterns in hand. David D[iamond] gave me a charming party last night: he is in fine shape. Titi has been around a lot, and sends you her love, as do all the other Florentines.

  You won't believe this, but the black fairy112 is in again, having covered half the earth from Vienna to New York, he promptly set forth again to Florence, with what money I don't know, and has been beating at the gates to see me (active at T'wood, assistant on the Israel tour, all the old crap) and I have consistently refused to see him. Luckily another pupil of mine, [Piero] Bellugi, has been around, and I got him to take charge of Roth and keep him away from me. According to Bellugi, Roth is madder than ever, and more dangerous. He is now threatening to expose us “all” as communists, the idiot. I am just afraid that he will cause some sort of stink through making a scene, with the consulate here, or somehow. He appeared in my dressing room last night after the concert, and I threw him out, and he left with an air of Well That's It, Now I Do My Worst. I'm really scared both for him and of him. He has no money to get back to the US, and will have to go to the Consulate to be shipped home, and that will cause talk. I alternate between saying Ho-Hum and Jesus-Christ. What a horror he is.

  Tremendous news: I've got a kepepelt [cold], at last. I only hope that I hold out these next 10 days. Lillian has been constantly on the phone, and I may have to go to Paris for two days either after Genoa or after Milano on the 3rd. I hope not, I really do. I'm also a bit embarrassed about all this peddling of the script to all these directors – it seems almost everyone in the world has been approached short of the Chinese Theatre, and that does not make good talk. In London she is seeing Rex Harrison and [John] Gielgud and [Garson] Kanin and God knows who else, and in Paris [René] Clair and [Julien] Duvivier and [Jean] Renoir and God knows who else, and for me there is really no work to show that really adds up. It is a situation I don't like at all. I had forgotten what a charm Lil has: speaking to her over the phone reminded me of why one sticks to her through thick: she has a real attractiveness in spite of everything, and a kind of combination of power and helplessness that in a woman is irresistible.

  I want to come home! Just think, in addition to coming home to you and Jamie, there will also be Fink – and a Cadillac! The latter is a slight worry – do we have the money? If we do, let's get it, and sell the Olds[mobile] in the fall if we have to. There's always the great idea of the two Nashes!

  All my love,

  L

  Vera says you look glorious!

  I spent four hours yesterday looking at emeralds for you, and the only decent one I found cost 21,000,000!!! So, let's wait until Lollobrigida makes us a fortch and then you'll swim in emeraldi.

  357. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein

  Hotel Colombia, Genoa, Italy

  27 May 1955

  Darling,

  I am just about to leave Genoa, which was after all great fun, in spite of the exhaustion. I had to rehearse the orch. here for the forthcoming tour, and it was a job and a half, teaching them the Serenade and the Berlioz, neither of which they knew, and at a time when they were so tired they could barely read the notes. Then […] the hall was not available for rehearsal, etc. We finally did it, by sheer dint, rehearsal all afternoon the day of the concert, after which I rushed around Genoa looking for a set of chimes, of all things, which Maria [Callas] helped me to find through Ricordi's […] and then there was the concert, and the report is that never before has Genoa seen such a success. Imagine, with my funny modern music and unpopular Berlioz! I had feared for the size of the audience as well as for their applause, and was surprised delightfully on both counts. The papers are raves, and Isaac [Stern] played better than ever, and the orchestra really did miracles, everything considered. Then they just went on to Rome, while I stayed here, thank God, for two days with the Sterns […] A lovely afternoon yesterday at the home of Maria's old parents; today we rented a car and drove to Portofino, but the sun went in bang and we had to come back. But at least it was a breathing spell. Now on to Bologna, and the rest of the one-night-stands, for six days. Then home!

  Listen: Lillian, from London, asks that I stop off in Paris for a day en route home, and I really can't refuse; but I worry so that you'll spring the Fink while I'm not looking that I hesitate. Keep me informed every minute about how things look and feel; if OK by you, I'll go to Paris, and be home probably on the 5th or 6th. I can't wait, really I can't; and you can't scare me with Jamie's tantrums. I've been expecting them all along. I'm dying to see her.

  I loved your letter, and the Caddylacky sounds like a dream and I wish you were here to hear the Serenade. My, how pretty it is. Terrible about Agee:113 I was prepared for it.

  Darling girl, it won't be long now. Please stop yourself up with adhesive tape or corks till I get home!

  LOVE

  X

  358. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein

  L'Orangerie, Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, France

  17 July 1955

  Papa L
ensk!

  Aren't you both smart! Take a big double bow. Hope Felicia and the Knabe are doing fine.114

  I'm sitting on top of a mountain in a villa overlooking Cannes and the Mediterr[anean]. Picked me a real nice spot (very different from Lago di Garda). It's work in the morning and work in the evening, and the beach in the afternoon (very different from Tanglewood).

  Which reminds me – how is the old girl? (Tanglewood). Has anyone noticed anything missing?

  After I left you in Rome I conducted in Paris and London. Watch out, I'm gettin' good.

  And what, may I ask, has been happening to you? (Did you see the Amer[ican] issue of The Score, with 2 articles on Bernstein? If not, they'll tell you.)

  Guess who I met in Cannes? – Kiki Speyer and son.

  I hear you had to abandon Canticle [of Freedom] in Hollywood for lack of a chorus. Too bad. Tell Edie to send me Tanglewood school programs. Want to see what you're up to.

  Love,

  A

  1 Marian MacDowell (1857–1956), pianist and widow of the composer Edward MacDowell. Though well into her nineties when she wrote this letter, Mrs. MacDowell remained an indefatigable enthusiast for new music. In 1896 she had bought Hillcrest, a farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire, as a quiet place for her husband, Edward MacDowell, to compose. After his death in 1908, this idyllic location became home to the MacDowell Colony, where composers, writers, and artists could work side by side in peace and quiet. Mrs. MacDowell lived to the age of 98. Colonists, and the works they created at Hillcrest, included Copland (Billy the Kid), Virgil Thomson (The Mother of Us All), Thornton Wilder (Our Town), James Baldwin (Another Country), and Du Bose and Dorothy Heywood (Porgy and Bess).

  2 Mrs. MacDowell is writing to express her enthusiasm for the Age of Anxiety Symphony which she had heard broadcast from New York on 26 February 1950.

  3 Bernstein himself spent time at the Colony only after Mrs. MacDowell's death, but his stays in 1962, 1970, and 1972 were all productive, as he recalled in 1987 when accepting the 29th MacDowell medal: “All of those times I was writing works which had, at least in intent, a vastness; which were dealing with subjects of astronomical if not mystical and astrological dimension. The first time was Kaddish. The second time was Mass. The last time was to write the six lectures that I later gave at Harvard known as the ‘Norton Lectures’. This vastness is inherent somehow in this place. The air smells higher here, and sweeter, and closer to the vastness.”