Odyssey Opera-goers know that Gil Rose finds terrific singers, sometimes casting his net widely—even overseas—when a particular opera requires familiarity with a language known to relatively few singers, but he also employs the best local singers. Over the years he has developed a virtual company of fine singers. Such is the case with the Gershwin double bill on October 12th.
Aaron Engebreth’s fine baritone voice, as both singer and actor, is always welcome; here he played President John P. Wintergreen, and, briefly, a would-be dictator. Heather Buck beautifully matched him as Mary Turner, a very different role than her first appearance here in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face 20 years ago. Both singers have performed worldwide in varied styles and repertories in recent decades, but both are perfectly at home in this thoroughly American score. Abigail Paschke (Diana Devereux and Trixie) was new to me, but her experience in both musicals and opera was evident in her deliciously catty jilted southern belle in Of Thee I Sing and femme fatale seductress in Let ‘Em Eat Cake. Neal Ferreira was quite splendid, both with his Gallic personality as the ambassador in Of Thee I Sing and his dynamic rabble-rouser Kruger in the second half of the evening. Steven Goldstein made a thoroughly amusing Alexander Throttlebottom, though most of his funny spoken lines had to be cut in this performance. Matthew DiBattista was a stalwart General Snookfield. Three senators, played by Thomas Oesterling, Matthew Arnold, and Brendan Buckley were excellent in their roles as venial and self-serving politicos.
The chorus, prepared by Andrew Clark, sang with delightful patriotic fervor, though unfortunately their necessary placement behind the orchestra too often overwhelmed the clarity of their words, especially the fastest and most patter-like of their lyrics, which were difficult to make out. (A regular theatrical production would have had them moving often to the front of the stage in both song and dance; the 1972 CBS television version of Of Thee I Sing [on YouTube HERE] gives a good sense of this, though the show is drastically cut).
As always, Gil Rose led a tight and well-paced take on two fine scores which we don’t get to hear often enough—alas, never fully staged. Our desire to see both shows fully mounted is surely an impossible dream these days, both because of the actual cost of design and staging and the fact that a larger cast and chorus would be required. It is unlikely that such a worthy tribute to the Gershwin brothers, Kaufman, and Ryskind would ever repay its cost or the effort that went into it. So it seems appropriate to raise a cheer for what was possible here and offer thanks for all the talent and work that went into the lively performance.
The production
Jordan Hall is a fine place for traditional concert performances, but it is not set up for theatrical works (though originally the shell could swivel open into wings and there was a grand drape and curtain). Most notably, the lack of an orchestra pit places all the performers at the same level and greatly restricts such elements as elaborate sets or dance numbers. Rose’s Odyssey Opera has, over the years, produced full-scale productions in real theaters and a fair number of concert performances—especially of elaborate grand operas, for which a full production would be unsupportably expensive—in Jordan Hall; they know how to maximize the potentials of shows despite such limitations.
The orchestra was placed as far back as possible to allow a working space on the forestage for soloists, who were fully costumed. Brooke Stenton’s costume designs and Rachel Padula’s wigs and makeup design were exactly right for the period and character of the shows. The chorus—necessarily placed across the back wall behind the orchestra—were less fully costumed but sported hats, scarves, and the like in patriotic red, white, and blue. And there was even a brilliant splash of red among the otherwise black-clad orchestra: concertmaster Gabriela Diaz’s bright red spike heels perfectly characterized her leaping up melodramatically for a cadenza during the overture, though eventually restrained by the conductor! Though there were no actual sets onstage, Chris Ostrum’s lighting supported the moods of the scenes.
My thoughts on the Scores
George S. Kaufman famously quipped in 1937 that “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” Despite his being the author of many satirical shows and films, alone or with collaborators, literary and musical, he had already made his name as a funny man in scripts written for two Marx Brothers musicals later made into movies, The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. His first collaboration with the Gershwin brothers was a political burlesque called Strike Up the Band, a satire on a war between the United States and Switzerland over tariffs each country placed on cheese from the other. After out-of-town tryouts in 1927, the show never made it to Broadway; but two years later, a revision with collaborator Morrie Ryskind, who emphasized lighter humor (including a switch from cheese to chocolate as the cause of the war), ran for 191 performances in the 1929-1930 season and set up the foursome Kaufmann-Ryskind-Gershwin-Gershwin for their most successful show the following year.
The idea for the new show, developed in the latter months of 1931 and opening in New York on December 26th, was a brilliant fusion of the typical hullaballoo of American campaigns shaped with the kind of political satire in classic operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan, which Ira Gershwin had thoroughly absorbed with his friend E. Y. Harburg when they were students at City College, giving both of them the impetus to become significant lyricists in the American musical theater. Of course, a presidential election was looming, one that would be especially significant given the country’s financial condition.
In a concert performance, about half the dialogue and a good part of the plot must be omitted (and this is even more the case in a performance including two shows, each of which originally ran about three hours on Broadway.
The success of Of Thee I Sing (411 performances, the longest of any show of the decade) and the award of the Pulitzer Prize to the book and lyrics (there was as yet no Pulitzer awarded for music) induced the creators to try again. In 1933 they came up with a sequel about a former president, having lost in his re-election, trying to provoke a rebellion to regain his power. The satire this time was more acid-tongued, using some of the kinds of political anger prevalent during the depths of the Depression, not to mention aspects of the rise of Fascism in Germany) resulted in a book that was far less joyous and funny. Clearly cast as a sequel, Let ‘Em Eat Cake called for the same characters (played by the same actors), but the plot is darker, evoking the “brown shirts” of the German fascists, for example, and had less of the deliciously silly political shenanigans. It closed after just 90 performances—a great disappointment to the creators. In fact, after Let ‘Em Eat Cake the Gershwin brothers never worked on another musical comedy for the theater. They turned to completing George’s long-planned opera Porgy and Bess and spent the remainder of George’s all-too-short life writing memorable songs for Hollywood films featuring their old friend Fred Astaire. The brain tumor that felled him in 1937 prevented further development of his already extraordinary career.
The original show: Of Thee I Sing
Of Thee I Sing contains such basic elements as a party meeting in a smoke-filled hotel room, where senators of the unnamed party worry that the voters will remember that they have sold Rhode Island. They cannot remember the nominee for vice president or even to recognize him when he shows up—a running joke throughout the play. Desperate to find a winning campaign theme, they ask the hotel maid what she is more interested in than anything in the world, but reject her first answer (money) because it might remind voters about the sale of Rhode Island. Her second choice, love, is more helpful. Their candidate is a bachelor, so they must have a beauty contest to choose a wife for him and unite the country with the slogan: Love.
The luscious woman eventually chosen is a southern belle, Diana Devereux. Unfortunately, the presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen has just gotten engaged to his secretary and factotum Mary Turner, especially because “She makes corn muffins!”—which Miss Devereux admits she cannot do. This brings on the title song of the show, brilliantly drawing on a phrase from one of the best-known American patriotic songs, “My country ‘tis of thee”— introduced at Madison Square Garden: “Of thee I sing” followed by the wonderfully incongruous tag, “baby!” The love campaign succeeds, and Wintergreen formally proposes to Mary Turner as soon as election returns are in. Diana Devereux serves Wintergreen with a suit for breach of promise, but the justices of the Supreme Court, asked to decide between justice or corn muffins, choose the latter.
Not willing to give in, Diana Devereux, supported by the Senator from Louisiana, calls upon the French ambassador makes it an international issue. After all:
She’s the illegitimate daughter
Of an illegitimate son
Of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon!
The First Lady interrupts the stormy Congressional hearing with news of the President’s “delicate condition”: he is about to become a father. This changes things. The country has never impeached an expectant father. The debate becomes tense, but there is a Constitutional solution: Whenever the President cannot perform the duties of his office, the Vice President does them. So the much-overlooked Alexander Throttlebottom becomes her husband.
The original show: Let ‘Em Eat Cake
Four years have passed. Wintergreen loses his re-election campaign to a serious opponent, Tweedledee, running against him, despite their slogan, “The same promises as last time.” Tweedledee wins with the greatest popular vote in history. After the Supreme Court refuses to throw out the election, the Wintergreens accept defeat and move to New York, where Mary’s skills as a seamstress help them to start a clothing store on Union Square. The sluggish economy makes the business slow.
A malcontent named Kruger starts a sidewalk harangue on behalf of revolution. The crowd cheers his summation, “Down with everything that’s up!” Wintergreen realizes they are in a perfect position to take part: Their store can produce blue shirts (like Mussolini’s blackshirts and Hitler’s brownshirts)—which makes their store a huge success, selling blue shirts across the entire country. Mary, meanwhile, encourages women of America to join in.
They march to the White House, where they expect to meet up with General Snookfield to join the revolutionary forces. But there is a drawback: Snookfield has been lured away to a party by his girlfriend Trixie. Mary urges his remaining soldiers to join the revolution; when Wintergreen promises them the war debt, they agree and overthrow Tweedledee’s democracy. Wintergreen promises a new dictatorship of the proletariat.
The White House is painted blue to match the spirit of the revolution. Wintergreen, enjoying his role as absolute leader, turns the Supreme Court into a baseball team and appoints Throttlebottom umpire.
Ten representatives of the League of Nations arrive to discuss their war debts. Finland is willing to pay, but the other nine are not. Wintergreen proposes a baseball game—the Supreme Court against the League of Nations, double or nothing. Before the game begins, both teams attempt to suborn the umpire, Throttlebottom.
The next scene takes place in a military court where Throttlebottom is on trial for conspiracy (a muffed call during the game) and sentenced to the guillotine. Wintergreen, too, is tried, along with his committee, all sentenced to beheading at dawn.
Mary saves the day again by presenting a fashion show of the latest Paris styles, pointing out that in the revolutionary United States, the only allowable color is blue, but if Kruger is overthrown, the women can wear whatever they want. Following the women’s decision, the Army seizes Kruger. Wintergreen restores the republic but decides to give up his dream of being president again to stay with his clothing store. Tweedledee accepts an offer to run Cuba — so Throttlebottom becomes president.
I’ve given such a detailed summary of the original plays because it is difficult to get a real sense of them—especially of Let ‘Em Eat Cake—with materials generally available, even with the excellent essay in the program book for the concert (about which more in a moment).
It is striking that many Gershwin shows were produced in other countries, especially, of course, in the English-speaking world, but not Of Thee I Sing, probably because it was so closely tied to purely American experiences. As for Let ‘Em Eat Cake, there was no thought of a revival. Kurt Gänzl suggests, in The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (Schirmer) that its flop also cast a shadow on the one-time hit, largely preventing revivals. To be sure, Of Thee I Sing has not entirely disappeared. A heavily cut version starring Carroll O’Connor, Chloris Leachman and Jack Gifford appeared on CBS in 1972, though cutting the running time to just 75 minutes. And in 1987 Michael Tilson Thomas led the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a recording of the music from both shows (both of these items can be seen or heard on YouTube). But few people really have a chance to know these scores, much less the plays.
The Gershwins’ Music
By 1931, the Gershwin brothers were well-known as a songwriting team. In the ‘20s, they had written the songs for three successful shows: Lady, Be Good (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), and Funny Face (19270 for Fred Astaire. Their invariable approach was for George to create the music first, then for Ira to fit words to the tune. Sometimes George gave Ira a particular challenge of irregular phrase lengths and odd rhythmic structure, though the bookish man of words found solutions, as in “Fascinating Rhythm.” Sometimes a song might start with just a title, upon which George could develop a tune for Ira’s lyrics. I rather suspect that Ira suggested the opening of the title song to Of Thee I Sing by suggesting the patriotic opening words followed by the sassy “Baby.”
The 1931 musical contained only two songs written in the usual way, the aforementioned title song and the campaign theme song “Love is sweeping the country.” For the rest of the show, Ira almost invariably wrote the words first, because the extended musical numbers were now theatrical scenes (rather like the first twenty minutes of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers or the Act I finale of Iolanthe, to name two of Ira’s favorite older pieces. These ongoing musical numbers, forwarding the plot, offered a challenge in turn to George, who had to find music to fit Ira’s words, exactly as he would do soon after in writing Porgy and Bess. As for Ira himself, he built upon the technique learned here and in Porgy when, in 1941, he was finally able to recover from the personal tragedy of his brother’s early death and create a show with Moss Hart and Kurt Weill. The music of Lady in the Dark consisted of three dream sequences shaped like operatic finales with continuously sung plot development.
George’s range of musical invention suggested clearly that he was moving toward a consistent theatrical music drama, though here its spirit was still humorous. However, the music he wrote for individual characters tends to identify them individually, as if with a Leitmotiv technique borrowed from Wagnerian opera. One amusing example occurs at every appearance of the Supreme Court justices who count off to a whole-tone scale (“We’re 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, NINE Supreme Court justices!”)
Gershwin finds ways to characterize the chorus, whether in a political parade (briefly quoting all sorts of familiar tunes in a rowdy hodge-podge (all of which manage to fit the words “Wintergreen for President”), operetta-style support of Diana Devereux’s plight, or the French ambassador’s legal argument.
The Gershwins also work out a contrapuntal song in the hit song from Let ‘Em Eat Cake, “More,” with John and Mary signing their love song while the chorus explicates it to the audience (“The point they’re making in this song | Is that the more than get along.” This double-tune tradition goes back at least to Gilbert & Sullivan and became a common device in many songs of Irving Berlin, starting with his early “When I get back home again to the U.S.A.” sung in counterpoint with “My country ‘tis of thee.”
These twinned Gershwin shows exhibit a newly assertive approach to styles and genres of music in the popular theater, even as they point to the future. All this makes the chance to hear these scores afresh doubly welcome.
Preparation of the BMOP performance version
Boston audiences are aware of the imaginative programming that Gil Rose has continually pursued with the two organizations he conducts, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera, so it was surely with enthusiastic anticipation that many, including me, welcomed the announcement of a concert performance of two political musicals with score by Gershwin amid a heated presidential campaign.
While hearing both scores is desirable, each original show had a running time of about three hours. This calls for considerable trimming, especially in the lengthier dialogue scenes, where some of the most pointed satire occurs. Conductor Gil Rose worked with Megan Stahl to produce an abridged production, cutting a large part of the spoken dialogue, though adding short passages necessary to clarify parts of the plot that would have otherwise been unclear. An excellent essay in the program book by Dr. Stahl explains these changes. By these means the total running time of the two shows—almost six hours (!)—becomes a manageable three hours, including one intermission between the two shows.
All photos by Kathy Wittman
Steven Ledbetter is a freelance writer and lecturer on music. He got his BA from Pomona College and PhD from NYU in Musicology. He taught at Dartmouth College in the 1970s, then became program annotator at the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1997.
