I
n the early 1940s, a
group of producers asked
Rodgers and Hart to turn
an old play into a musical.
The plot concerned pioneer
farm folk and cowboys in
early-twentieth century
Oklahoma. Larry Hart, who
was battling ill health and
serious addictions, said no.
He was a city boy and had no
interest in rural “hicks.” This
gave Richard Rodgers the
chance he had been seeking
to work with a more stable
partner. With Hart’s blessing,
Rodgers asked his old friend
Oscar Hammerstein to step in.
The show they created,
Oklahoma!
, was the biggest
hit Broadway had ever seen,
running for over five years at
a time when even the most
successful shows lasted only a
season or two.
It also changed forever the
way shows were constructed.
The artistic elements of
Oklahoma!
were tightly
integrated: book, score,
dances, scenery, costumes,
and orchestrations all worked
together to tell the story. If the
plot didn’t require it, it didn’t
happen.
Oklahoma!
was the
second of Hammerstein’s
great musical plays, building
on the innovations he had
introduced in
Show Boat
.
Now Rodgers & Hammerstein
were Broadway’s musical
kings. Together, they wrote a
total of nine shows in the next
14 years, five of which are
among the greatest hits of all
time:
Oklahoma!
,
Carousel
,
South Pacific
,
The King and I
and
The Sound of Music
. In
addition, they wrote a hit
movie musical,
State Fair
, and
a made-for-television musical,
Cinderella
, which aired live
in 1957 and was seen by 107
million people (60 percent of
the American population!)
The Sound of Music
was
the team’s last show, and
“Edelweiss” their last song.
Hammerstein died in 1960,
a few months after the
opening.
Rodgers lived till
1979. He continued
to compose — at first
writing his own lyrics
(including some for
the
Sound of Music
movie), then working
with a succession of
writers, including
Martin Charnin, Sheldon
Harnick, and Oscar
Hammerstein’s neighbor
and protégé, Stephen
Sondheim.
The multiple award-winning musical
The Sound of Music
was the last collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist
Oscar Hammerstein II. Together they wrote some of the most beloved shows of the golden age of musicals.
RICHARD RODGERS composed his first songs
at a summer camp, then wrote music for college
shows at Columbia University. A friend introduced
him to a smart young lyric writer, Larry Hart, who
shared his ambitious artistic goals. The two wrote
several clever scores, but they attracted little
attention and Rodgers seriously considered an
offer to quit and sell children’s underwear.
They finally got their big break in 1925 with a
small benefit show that won raves from the critics.
For the next fifteen years, Rodgers & Hart were
one of the top teams on Broadway, writing 28
stage musicals and over 500 songs.
Broadway musicals were different then. They
were “musical comedies,” built around hit songs,
popular comedians and singing stars. Rodgers
& Hart did their best to tell adventurous stories
with individual musical styles. Most of their shows
are now forgotten, but dozens of their songs are
now standards, cherished by pop singers and jazz
artists.
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II
was born into a show business
family. His grandfather won
and lost several fortunes
building theaters and opera
houses, and his father
managed the biggest
vaudeville palace in Manhattan.
The family wanted him to
become a lawyer, but show
business was in his blood and
he quit law school to write
lyrics for Broadway musicals.
Oscar worked with many of
the top composers of the day.
He had a huge hit with the
groundbreaking 1927 musical
Show Boat, with music by
Jerome Kern. This was not a
typical musical comedy, but
a musical play that treated
serious themes, including race relations, and
covered a 35-year span of American cultural
history.
For years Hammerstein wasn’t able to follow
Show Boat with another hit. The Great
Depression of the 1930s caused producers to
back away from unusual, risk-taking shows, and
by 1940 Oscar wondered if his time had passed.
Rodgers and Hammerstein, the men behind the magic
Courtesy of Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Company,
Courtesy of Rodgers & Hammerstein:
An Imagem Company,
2
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015 |
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