Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Papp’s Pirates on Broadway A Fan’s Look Back

I caught Joseph Papp’s hip, self-aware revival of “The Pirates of Penzance” when it moved to Broadway in the 1980s. In common with his Broadway Shakespeare revivals, Papp’s “Pirates” had its origins elsewhere (for Shakespeare it was the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park; for “Pirates” it was the Public Theater’s headquarters in the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan). While rapturously received, the ‘80s “Pirates,” was certainly not for Gilbert & Sullivan purists – the reduction of Sullivan’s orchestration is a horror, and the voices were not exactly D’Oyly Carte – but my, was it a lot of fun!

By the time I was able to see it, Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, and Linda Ronstadt were off making the movie – which, I’m sorry to say, turned out stagy, corny, and disappointing. (What worked in the theater did not transfer well to film.) However, George Rose, as the very model of a modern Major General, and Tony Azito, as the Sergeant of Police, somehow continued their Broadway run, even as they too appeared in the movie.

How amazing Azito was in this show. It’s regrettable that the editing choices for the video linked below allow only glimpses of his incredible dexterity. (Azito did all his own choreography.) The police are reimagined somewhat in the style of the Keystone Kops. Azito himself is a human rubber band, who can replicate and even surpass the most improbable contortions of the great physical comedians of yore. (He does a wonderful Groucho dance.) Sadly, Azito died of AIDS in 1995. He was so talented. Justifiably, he was nominated for a Tony for his performance (as was Rose, who didn’t end well either, murdered in Haiti only a few years later, in 1988). I was very fortunate also to be able to catch Azito in “Amphigorey,” a musical revue based on the macabre comic creations of Edward Gorey, during a tryout run at Philadelphia’s Plays and Players Theater in the 1992.

Papp’s “Pirates” moved to Broadway in 1981 and ran for 787 performances. It was recognized with a Tony Award for Best Revival and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical.

By the time I caught it, James Belushi had slipped on the seven-league boots of the Pirate King. You wouldn’t think he would be on a level with Kline, who transformed the character into a post-Errol Flynn matinee idol, with puffy shirt and plunging neckline, as apt to tumble off the stage as swing on a rope. Delightfully, Belushi was every bit as nimble as his famous brother, doing flips off trampolines and carousing most energetically.

You can watch the Kline incarnation, captured prior to its Broadway transfer, here:

By coincidence, I see “Pirates” is back in Midtown, now at the Todd Haimes Theater on West 42nd Street, as “Pirates! A Penzance Musical,” with David Hyde Pierce as the Major General. From what I understand, the new production takes a quasi-meta approach, with the historical Gilbert & Sullivan passing through New Orleans, where a local production of their comic operetta is being staged. I have my doubts about “this jazzy-bluesy vision of the crowd-pleasing classic, in an outrageously clever romp sizzling with Caribbean rhythms and French Quarter flair.” But who knows, it might also be fun. Not sure I’ll be stumbling over myself to see it, but I’d go if somebody offered me a cheap ticket.

April 6, 2025
Viva Verdi Music of Italian Unification

“Viva VERDI!” – the cry of Italian patriots on the eve of unification.

Italy of the 1850s was but a conglomerate of individual states, many of them still under foreign rule. The slogan “Viva VERDI!” was coined in 1859, following the premiere of the composer’s politically sensitive opera “Un ballo in maschera.”

Verdi’s ongoing troubles with the censors are well-known. It’s a safe bet that when he undertook an opera about a political assassination, he had a pretty good idea what to expect. The name VERDI was taken up by firebrands of the Risorgimento as an acronym for “Vittorio Emanuele, Re D’Italia.” King Vittorio Emanuele II of Piedmont was seen by many as the best hope for a free and united Italy.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll refrain for delving too much into Italy’s Second War for Independence, or of Garibaldi’s struggles with the Bourbons. Instead, we’ll enjoy examples of MUSICAL unification – various composers of Italian origin coming together to attempt cohesive works of art.

There are those who believe the serenata “Andromeda Liberata” may have been composed entirely by Antonio Vivaldi – but perhaps not. The likely impetus for its creation was the return to Rome of one Cardinal Ottobone, who was also a patron of both Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti.

The story is that of Perseus and Andromeda. Andromeda has already been rescued from the sea serpent at the start of the piece, which mostly explores the ambiguous feelings of its characters, with a few extraneous love interests tossed into the mix to provide romantic conflict.

The two-hour entertainment contains in its second part a single aria known definitively to have been composed by Vivaldi. The authorship of the rest remains in doubt. The long-lost manuscript, dating from 1726, was rediscovered as recently as 2002.

In 1868, Verdi’s great operatic predecessor, the long-retired Gioachino Rossini, died. Rossini had completed his last opera nearly forty years before. Verdi undertook to bring together 12 of his contemporaries, now largely forgotten. The oldest, Carlo Coccia, at age 87, was actually a decade Rossini’s senior!

Within the year, a collaborative mass was compiled in Rossini’s memory, for which Verdi provided the concluding “Libera me.” In fact, the music looks forward to Verdi’s own masterful Requiem. The completed work doesn’t attain anywhere near the lofty heights of Verdi’s solo run. However, it’s an interesting compendium of contemporary styles, and even the music of lesser talents serves to cast Verdi’s genius in a new light.

Remarkably, the work lay unperformed in Verdi’s lifetime. Talk about politics! Here was Verdi, a Milanese, trying to kindle some sort of enthusiasm in Bologna (the location of Rossini’s earliest successes), for a project which was to bring together a bunch of compositional dinosaurs, to salute a figure who, for all intents and purposes, had retired from public life some four decades earlier. Bologna at the time was in the process of becoming a stronghold of the musical avant-garde.

All these factors, along with puzzling stipulations, such as the work being locked away after its first performance, to be trotted out only on special occasions, doomed the project virtually from the start. It remained unheard for another 120 years, resurrected only in 1988.

I hope you’ll join me for “Viva VERDI!” – Italian unification through music – on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 5, 2025
Rainbow Songs & Spring Showers on KWAX

Surely, the most famous song about rainbows must be “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, an Academy Award winner from “The Wizard of Oz.” Last year, there was a Kansas-style dust-up over whether or not Arlen may have lifted his indelible melody from an obscure Norwegian pianist-composer he heard perform when he was a boy – 29 years earlier. You can draw your own conclusions this week, on “Sweetness and Light,” as we listen to the Concert Etude, Op. 38, by Signe Lund.

In fact, several works on the program will be associated with rainbows. We’ll also enjoy a suite from Roger Quilter’s “Where the Rainbow Ends” and an arrangement by Robert Farnon of Frédéric Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, the big central melody of which was appropriated for the song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” The balance of the playlist will be devoted to showers and the promise of spring.

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but early spring is always a mercurial time. However, as they say, April showers bring May flowers. I’ll be waiting for you with an umbrella and smile, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 5, 2025
Elmer Bernstein’s Magnificent Western Film Scores

Elmer Bernstein scored films in just about every genre – from “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955) to “The Ten Commandments” (1956) to “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) to “The Great Escape” (1963) to “Animal House” (1978) to “The Age of Innocence” (1993) to his final project, the Oscar-nominated “Far from Heaven” (2002) – but he had a particular knack for the western.

His swaggering theme for “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) is just about synonymous with most people’s idea of western adventure. (It also sold a heck of a lot of cigarettes when it was licensed by Marlboro.)

Not surprisingly, “The Magnificent Seven” put Bernstein much in demand as a western composer, and he wrote scores for many, including most of the films of John Wayne’s final decade. What’s striking is just how much he was able to vary them. His work for “The Comancheros” (1961) is very different from that for “True Grit” (1969), for instance, and “The Shootist” (1976), Wayne’s final film, is different still.

You’ll be able to sample some of them, when we saddle up for seven magnificent western scores of Elmer Bernstein, for the composer’s birthday, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 4, 2025
Castelnuovo-Tedesco From Exile to Hollywood

I always felt a mix of compassion and wonder when reading about all those artists and intellectuals in the 1930s and ‘40s, who were driven away from everything they ever knew, becoming refugees well into their adult years, and forced to reinvent themselves in strange lands. Of course, their loss was our gain, as, in particular, they made the United States a better place, bringing all their expertise to bear in their respective fields, ensuring the country was alive with fresh ideas and influences, making us a leader in medical, technological, academic, artistic, and other fields. But it was a hell of price for them to pay.

Now I wonder if history is repeating itself, and many will be forced to flee in the opposite direction, if they can.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was 44 when he came to the U.S., fleeing persecution, as a Jew, under Mussolini’s antisemitic policies. He was sponsored by none other than Arturo Toscanini, who loathed fascism. Castelnuovo-Tedesco had many empathetic, well-placed musical friends, including Jascha Heifetz, Andrés Segovia, and Gregor Piatigorsky, who understood his true worth.

In addition to being a prolific concert composer, Castelnuovo-Tedesco wound up making a nice chunk of change in Hollywood. He wrote music for some 200 movies, including “And Then There Were None,” starring Barry Fitzgerald, and “The Loves of Carmen,” with Rita Hayworth. As a teacher, his students included André Previn, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams.

I first to got to know Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music through his guitar concertos, which live in the sweet spot between Italian lyricism and cinematic splendor. Just about everything I’ve ever heard by him goes straight to the heart. The slow movements make you sigh, and later, when you’re doing the dishes, they make you want to sing.

Today marks the 130th anniversary of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s birth, and more and more his music is being recorded all the time. Good for him. The man brought a hell of a lot of beauty to the world.

Happy birthday, Mario C-T!

Guitar Concerto No. 1

With Passover right around the corner, this one’s always been a favorite of mine this time of year: the Violin Concerto No. 2 “The Prophets” (its three movements: “Isaiah,” “Jeremiah,” “Elijah”)

A new discovery for me: “Ballata dall’Esilio”

Shakespeare overtures. Pick any one of them.

April 3, 2025

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS