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The street where I live : a memoir
\"The Street Where I Live is at once an intimate biography of three great shows-My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot-and a candid account of the life and times of Alan Jay Lerner, one of America's most acclaimed and popular lyricists. Large-hearted, humorous, and often poignant in its reverence for a celebrated era in the American theater, it is the story of what Lerner calls the sundown of wit, eccentricity, and glamour. Try as he might to keep himself out of these pages, Lerner reveals himself to be a man of great talent, laughter, and love. Along the way, we meet a sensational supporting cast: Moss Hart, Fritz Loewe, Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Cecil Beaton, Louis Jourdan, and Maurice Chevalier, to name a few. They are seen in moments of triumph and disaster, but all are professionals at the creation of theater. And the creation of theater is the matrix of this wonderful book. Including the complete lyrics to My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot.\"--Publisher description.
Book
Harry B. Smith: A Biography
Harry B. Smith was the most prolific writer of librettos for the American musical theatre in history, with nearly half of his 300 works actually opening in New York City. In addition, Smith was instrumental in adapting and popularizing foreign musicals in America, significantly influencing writing and composing styles of American shows. He worked with every major composer in America between 1880 and 1920, and consequently this examination of his work and process is highly instructive of the history of the American musical.
eBook
Under Cover in Babylon: Rossini's Cyrus the Great for the Lenten Season
Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia, ossia, La caduta di Baldassare (Cyrus in Babylon, or, The Fall of Belshazzar) was performed during Lent in 1812 at Ferrara's Teatro Comunale. This study examines how the opera's librettist Francesco Aventi synthesized disparate sources that included the Greek historian Herodotus and the Biblical prophets, ancient and early modern prose treatises on the Persian king Cyrus the Great, and baroque operatic representations of imperial power; and how Rossini responded to those sources musically for the particular historical moment in March of 1812. The piece is of interest as the first serious opera for the librettist and the composer both. It displays innovative approaches to classicizing material familiar from the eighteenth-century, as exemplified in Metastasio's Ciro riconosciuto and Sarti's Giulio Sabino, and it presents the secular hero Cyrus as a Christological figure that suffers and then triumphs with divine help. Musically it anticipates developments in Rossini's own Mosè in Egitto and Semiramide. The title “Under cover in Babylon” refers first to Aventi's and Rossini's use of the standard operatic plot device of the disguised lover to motivate Cyrus's entry into the enemy city of Babylon. Second, by calling the piece an “oratorio” and including Biblical material, they disguised an opera as an entertainment appropriate for Lent. Finally, the piece carries possible but subtly expressed messages connected with Napoleonic Italy and the Ferrarese Jewish community.
Journal Article
Something wonderful : Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway revolution
\"Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play. Their songs and dance numbers served to advance the drama and reveal character, a sharp break from the past and the template on which all future musicals would be built. [This is a portrait of that creative partnership]\"--Amazon.com
Book