In 1943, Jerome Robbins, then a dancer with the Ballet Theater, wanted to make his name as a choreographer. He had a scenario for a ballet about three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York, looking for girls, excitement and any kind of fun they can stir up. They find it all. It was the perfect subject for the war years, with the city crammed with sailors on leave. Hunting for a composer, Robbins was turned down by Vincent Persichetti, who suggested that Robbins approach Leonard Bernstein instead.
At the time Bernstein’s star was rising as a conductor and composer of serious music, although his mentor, Serge Koussevitzky, decried his selling out to "commercialism." The ballet, when it opened in April 1944 in the old Metropolitan Opera House, was a spectacular success both in choreography the music.
The music, full of complex rhythms and snappy, jazzy themes, shows Bernstein at his most exuberant and inventive. It joined scores of other American composers, such as Aaron Copland, Morton Gould and others, who employed the rhythms and harmonies of American popular culture on the classical ballet stage. It was also Bernstein's inaugural work in a string of hugely successful ballets and musicals leading up to his most successful work in this genre, West Side Story.
The seven scenes of the ballet are self-explanatory:
- Enter Three Sailors
- Scene at the Bar
- Enter Two Girls
- Pas de Deux
- Competition Scene
- Three Dance Variations (Galop Waltz, Danson)
- Finale
Realizing that the subject had further potential, Bernstein and Robbins teamed up with Betty Comden and Adolph Green for the book and lyrics, and by December 1944 had created the musical On the Town with entirely new music. The show was the toast of the town, quickly becoming a classic. One of its numbers, “New York, New York,” is possibly one of the best-known songs from any musical.
Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
www.wordprosmusic.com
Photo courtesy of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.