- A WHITE HOUSE CANTATA
- Scenes from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
(DG463 448-2)
- Is it a musical? Is it a cantata? Whatever it is, this
outstanding premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein's final stage
work reveals a glorious score brilliantly performed and recorded.
Music by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Cast: Thomas Hampson (President), June Anderson (First Lady),
Barbara Hendricks (Seena), Kenneth Tarver (Lud), Victor Acquah
(Little Lud), Keel Watson (Henry), Neil Jenkins (Admiral Cockburn),
with London Voices and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted
by Kent Nagano.
Prelude; Ten Square Miles By The Potomac River; If I Was A
Dove; Take Care Of This House; The President Jefferson Sunday
Luncheon March; Seena; Sonatina; Lud's Wedding; The Monroviad;
This Time; We Must Have A Ball; Bright And Black; Duet For One;
The Money-Lovin' Minstrel Show (Minstrel Parade; Pity The Poor;
The Grand Old Party); To Make Us Proud
Order A White House Cantata Today!
Disenchanted by the crookery of Richard Nixon and the trauma
of Watergate, in the early 1970s Alan Jay Lerner conceived the
idea of writing a show that had the White House as its hero.
A musical conducted tour of the Presidential headquarters, 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue (the White House's address) had a troubled
tour en route to New York in 1976. Production personnel were
replaced. Cuts and adjustments were constantly being made. Lerner
and his composer, Leonard Bernstein, were eventually barred from
attending rehearsals. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue played out its
first week on Broadway and closed, never to be seen again. Or,
until now, heard.
The reasons for its failure have mostly been left at Lerner's
door. Not for the first time, his book was said to be unwieldy.
It almost certainly was, but the original concept was masterly.
Here is a century of American history in an unrolling pageant
of American Presidents from George Washington establishing the
White House up to the installation, at the start of the twentieth
century, of Roosevelt. Lerner's coup de theatre is to have all
the Presidents played by one actor (originally the American Ken
Howard) with each First Lady played by one actress (the British
Patricia Routledge).
But Lerner had still more up his sleeve, setting the 'upstairs'
history of the presidential marriages against a 'below-stairs'
history of the White House's black servants. It is a daring idea,
matching the white supremacy against the struggle for black freedom,
and it might have worked. Lerner then further dramatically muddied
the waters by having the four principals come out of their parts
to rehearse the show they were in. It was all too much, and weighed
down 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with many of the problems that
led to its collapse.
Since its untimely end, the show has remained almost completely
unheard except for the First Lady's anthem 'Take Care Of This
House', recorded some years later by Routledge at a charity concert.
It is presumably due to the Bernstein estate that, almost 25
years on, we are at last able to hear this magnificent score.
My only cavil about the project is that somewhere along the line
somebody has decided to pass off this re-arrangement of the original
score as a cantata - according to my dictionary 'a choral work,
kind of short oratorio, or lyric drama set to music but not intended
for acting'. The fact that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a musical
is sidelined, but the transformation is nonsensical. This is
patently not a cantata: it cries out for the stage, it reeks
theatre, and to deny the nature of the beast seems to me an uneasy
decision. Perhaps the estate believes that, disguised as a piece
of classical music, the piece will be taken up for performing
by those who wouldn't tackle a stage production. It's a dishonest
thing. Anyway, audiences confronted by the show in cantata-form
will surely be mystified at every turn. Neither will they be
fooled. Curiously, the very inadequate booklet notes accompanying
this CD doesn't contain any real discussion about the show and
its current manifestation. It doesn't even have the name of a
person who has 're-made' the material.
Never mind. We can finally judge the music and lyrics of a
work that went unappreciated, and was even condemned as 'racist'
in its depiction of the black characters. A recent Gramophone
review takes exception to the words Lerner gives his black servants,
lines such as 'So why can't a darkie hide out in de dark?'. In
another sequence, the English visitors constantly speak of 'fuzzies'
in the White House. When a black servant appears, he is seen
as 'a ray of dark'. Some of this may make us uneasy, but the
Gramophone's view seems to me to be taking political correctness
too far. Lerner and Bernstein (both Jews) understood the problems
of the oppressed, and wouldn't have belittled their fellow human
beings. Presumably, too, the black singers now performing this
material are happy to do so. The language Lerner uses is precisely
the way black language was perceived throughout the nineteenth
century. Lerner is being honest, and there is, anyway, something
ennobling here. The blacks (Lud and his wife Seena) are gentle,
admirable, intelligent and faithful. In contrast, the English
are ridiculed in the clever 'Sonatina' with a generous over-delineation
of silly-ass Britishness.
Throughout, Lerner's lyrics are witty and heart-felt, perfectly
striking the right note for atmosphere, and the ideas for the
numbers have a touch of genius about them, as in the marvellous
'Duet For One' (with the First Lady playing two First Ladies
at once). Then there is 'The Monvoriad' in which President Monroe
in bed stirs his wife to discuss presidential worries, only to
have her harangue him with the plight of the blacks. She upsets
him so much that she has to coax him back to the sleep from which
he woke her: it's a simple but highly effective theatrical trick.
Attention will of course focus on Bernstein's music. Could
a work so ignored and overlooked be anything more than an interesting
curiosity? It was the composer's first musical since West Side
Story, and he wrote much more music for it than he had for any
earlier musical (over two hours of it, reduced here to a generous
80 minutes). In fact, there is no apology needed for this music,
abundantly vibrant, melodic, theatrically exciting, profoundly
stirring - it is theatre music with greatness in it. It clearly
doesn't deserve to be put out into that hinterland of 'cross-over'
pieces into the classical repertoire. Here is a score that demands
to be played over and over again. On each occasion, new beauties
are revealed, not least in the fabulous orchestrations by Bernstein,
Hershy Kay and Sid Ramin.
Although there is nothing here (beyond 'Take Care Of This
House', a melody that frequently haunts the piece) to 'take-away'
in the way that, say, West Side Story offered, there is not a
weak moment. Time and again, the impression is one of sustained
brilliance and the sharp intelligence of composer and lyricist,
with a simple but passionate patriotism (the best sort) at its
heart. When Lerner writes 'Let rage be fearless/ And faith be
loud,/ This land needs love/ To make us proud' Bernstein responds
with a profound majesty, for Lerner and Bernstein wear their
feelings of country on their sleeves. Along the way, Bernstein
explores much musical territory, his textures constantly changing
with sometimes irresistible effect (as in the captivating 'Bright
and Black'). There are all sort of echoes in this score. Washington's
opening dialogue with the state delegates sounds like undiscovered
Kurt Weill; the shaping of 'Take Care of This House' bears a
startling resemblance to something by Ethel Smyth. The melting-pot
is made whole by Bernstein's natural understanding of his material.
For my money, I would put this score as above Wonderful Town,
and certainly on a par with the sometimes overrated Candide.
The recording is in the first division, with lovely playing
from the London Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagaro. The cast
is superb. Thomas Hampson warms to all of his Presidents, bringing
real theatrical bite to the first act closer 'We Must Have A
Ball' and bringing off the humour of Washington's intention to
build the White House along 'Ten Square Miles By The Potomac
River'. He also faces the challenge of Roosevelt's aria 'To Make
Us Proud' a hymn of belief and pride that shares the sense of
integrity found in the closing song of Candide, 'Make Our Garden
Grow'.
As the First Lady June Anderson is quite simply a revelation.
It is a pity that Routledge didn't get to record the role, but
Anderson is a total success, intensely moving in 'Take Care Of
This House' (in which she is magically accompanied by a boy singer
Victor Acquah as Little Lud). She pitches the song's great climax
with ecstatic ease, a perfect moment. More surprisingly, Anderson
displays a real comedic flair in the difficult 'Duet For One'
(another of the disc's highlights in which all the elements come
together so satisfactorily), and couldn't be a rounder, more
real woman than in her duet with Hampson 'The Monvoriad'. This
is a performance of real breadth and emotion from an opera singer
who could teach some leading ladies of musicals a thing or two.
Good as they are, Hampson and Anderson don't take all the
laurels. Kenneth Tarver's Lud has some of Bernstein's most melting
music, and has a crystalline integrity that makes it shimmer.
He and Barbara Hendricks as a fragile Seena respond to every
nuance of Bernstein's mood. The London Voices is a vital presence,
always in character. They are one of the main delights of the
occasion - listen to their 'black' singing of 'Welcome Home,
Miss Adams' or the 'white' sequences of 'Sonatina' to hear the
attention to detail. The London Symphony Orchestra is on thrilling
form in this most spacious and comfortably spectacular sound.
Musical or cantata? Whichever it is, this is a glorious achievement,
and no serious lover of musical theatre will want to be without
it.
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