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Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
PDF Download Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
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Audible Audiobook
Listening Length: 10 hours and 53 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Audible.com Release Date: April 3, 2018
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English, English
ASIN: B078SZGLGQ
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
"You ask too much of people who have been successful, and they are human too," Richard Rodgers once remarked. In "Something Wonderful," Todd S. Purdum' s absorbing account of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway revolution, he restores humanity to R and H. He also celebrates their sincerity, the very quality that later made Rodgers And Hammerstein musicals unfashionable to the critical elite. Elliott Norton observed, "When you mention Rodgers and Hammerstein to almost any normal American with a sound heart and good hearing, he thinks at once of songs and scenes and shows which they have written--and which have given him great and abiding pleasure." So it was and so it may always be. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals have become such a part of pop culture fabric, they are almost taken for granted. They never should be. Purdum doesn't knock Rodgers and Hammerstein off their musical theatre pedestals. He does not want to. Ethan Mordden effectively did that in his scholarly, heavily illustrated, coffee table book. Purdue's book is much more fair and much more fun to read. And it's because Purdum writes from a human perspective. It turns out, these Masters Of Musical Theatre were mere mortals after all. They were astonishingly talented, creative, driven, ambitious men, complete with flaws and all. It really doesn't matter that they were geniuses of their craft. Without their humanity, their flaws, and their simple, honest sincerity, the public never would have responded to their shows at all. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II met each other long before their partnership, and each began to sew the seeds of their Broadway revolution with other partners. Hammerstein was literally born into the theatre. Rodgers was a musical prodigy from a cold, emotionally distant and abusive home. That coldness became part of Rodgers' nature. Hammerstein wrote Broadway's first really serious musical "Show Boat" with Jerome Kern in 1927. After "Rose Marie", Hammerstein had nothing but flops, spent several unproductive years in Hollywood, and suffered a nervous breakdown due to his turbulent personal life. Rodgers had nothing but hit after hit with his other Big "H" partner Lorenz Hart from the mid 1920's throughout the 1930's. Their 1940 musical "Pal Joey" was more worldly and sophisticated than anything Broadway had seen before. But Hart was a genius who was hell-bent on self-destruction, and he did exactly that. Rodgers couldn't take it anymore and Hammerstein needed a hit. The success of "Oklahoma!" was never predestined or a safe bet. But Purdum brings into sharp focus how Rodgers and Hammerstein came together at exactly the right time and, combining their years of theatrical experience, created "Oklahoma!", a musical that America not only needed by 1943, but also wholeheartedly embraced. Their next musical "Carousel" was even more risky. "Oklahoma!" was essentially about a picnic-party. "Carousel" was about life, death, spousal abuse, poverty, suicide, and a few other things in between. "Carousel", their darkest musical with their richest, most operatic score, remains their most problematic-- but somehow they pulled it off. Purdum celebrates their deserved successes and is fair minded about their Broadway flops ("Allegro", "Me And Juliet" and "Pipe Dream") and their personal flaws and failings. At some point, they stopped being Richard Rodgers, composer, and Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist and librettist, and became trapped victims of their own success. This is, after all, a story of show business, and R & H became a business-- an entertainment empire, really. R & H were business men. Rather stingy business men who had prickly relationships with talented people in the R & H business. Purdum finally gives orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, music arranger Trude Rittmann and scenic designer Jo Milzner their long overdue credits. Playwright and director Josh Logan was treated worst of all. Logan wrote the book to the masterpiece "South Pacific" with Hammerstein in bursts of inspired and manic creativity. Logan received co-author and director credit , but was cheated out of royalties. Hammerstein attempted to correct things by asking Logan to direct "The King And I." Wounded by his "South Pacific" experience, Logan refused. But Logan remained, by choice, a close friend in Hammerstein's circle. Hammerstein poured out his frustrations about Rodgers to Logan, and asked him for advice on shows. Hammerstein ignored Logan's advice on how to improve "Allegro", and it flopped. He took Logan's advice on how to make "The King And I" more warm and entertaining, and it was a huge hit. As far as knowing what stories to musicalize and how, Rodgers And Hammerstein were indeed ONE with a great track record of success and a few flops. As men and "friends", they hardly knew each other at all. Interestingly, R & H were both married to women named Dorothy. Both Dorothy R and Dorothy H were interior designers. And they didn't like each other, either. They kept up a cool if distant facade, however. By the mid-1950's, a coolness came into the R & H relationship that lasted until the end. After writing a bubbly and unpretentious score for "Cinderella" for CBS TV in 1957, Rodgers suffered a severe depression (nervous breakdown) and his first battle with cancer. R & H had one more "lucky hit" in them, "Flower Drum Song", which is seldom staged today. Mary Martin, the star of "South Pacific", brought "The Sound Of Music" to R & H. When rehearsals began, Hammerstein was diagnosed with cancer. If cancer had not killed him, critical response to "The Sound Of Music" might have. One critic said the show was too sweet for words and music. Hammerstein died in 1960, and "The Sound Of Music" became R & H's most popular "popular success." After great success and an entertainment empire, it became fashionable to knock the R & H empire and everything in it down. After Hammerstein's death, the critical elite dismissed R & H shows as conventional, pandering, condescending, and worst of all, childish. Purdum ponders how and why R & H fell into critical disfavor. It actually happened a few years before Hammerstein's death, and Purdum says the middlebrow movie versions of "Oklahoma!", "Carousel, and "South Pacific", which muted the innovations in the shows and maximized the schmaltz, do not help at all. "The King And I", with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, is the best R & H movie adaptation, and "The Sound Of Music" starring Julie Andrews is the biggest R & H movie mega-hit. The modest Julie Andrews seems to be at a loss to explain to Purdum why "The Sound Of" Movie remains such a wildly popular success. Purdum feels that the major R & H hit shows are not bad at all, but for many years, productions and the packaging of them, were terrible. Recent productions of "Carousel" and "South Pacific" sparked a major R & H re-evaluation. I am sure readers will agree with Purdum that the R & H revolution was something wonderful indeed, and their shows are still relevant and worthy of serious discussion and artistic appreciation.
Just as Oklahoma! was to war-weary audiences in its day...THIS book is the tonic I needed in a time when the world around me has ceased to make sense. I'm not even into Broadway musicals all that much, and found it enchanting. Now I find myself downloading original cast albums, just to try to relive some of the magic myself. Mr. Purdom did a fine job. Thanks to NPR's "Fresh Air" to alerting me to this release.
I've read extensively about Broadway history since I was in my teens and I'm an "honored citizen" now (aka "old"), so I wondered when I first saw this book whether it would add anything to what I already know. I was ultimately persuaded to buy it by some of the rave reviews I read. I'm glad I did. There were details about the lives of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein I had not come across before, plus some real insight into how they worked together and what their work gained from their synergy. For those who loved their shows, you'll never find such detailed stories of the step-by-step creation of the hits and the flops as well. Broadway music has been the soundtrack of my life and it all started with a friend back in grade school who invited me over to hear the Original Cast recording of "Oklahoma." Reading about the creation of that landmark show took me right back to that wonderful moment in my life. It really was the first time I fell in love with a form of art. The affair continues to this day.
I bought this rather expensive book after reading the review in The Economist. Nevertheless I feared I had another of those dry, fact filled books (to show the author worked very hard and knew everything) but no, I was fascinated from beginning to end and am very glad to learn so much about the music and the movies I always enjoyed so much. I never saw one o the musicals because I always lived to far away; now I feel I have seen them all! Highly recommended, which I don't do very often. Thank you Mr. Purdum!
What a wonderful and engaging book. It takes me back too. The first live play I ever saw as a little girl was Oklahoma at the Oriental theater in Chicago. So interesting and easy to read.Judy Myers
Do you remember a time, roughly 1943 to 1963, when the composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein practically owned American musical culture? When I was a small boy, “Cinderella†played on CBS, “The Sound of Music†was headed from Broadway to Hollywood, and songs from shows like “Oklahoma,†“The King and I†and “Carousel†played on the radio and were sung everywhere from schools to taverns and elite performance halls. The record clubs of the era even had a separate membership category called “Broadway Sounds,†“Tin Pan Alley†or something like that.Even if you don’t recall those days, author Todd Purdum takes us there for all of that, and also gives credit to the composers who influenced them ("Larry" Hart and Jerome Kern, among others) and those whom they influenced (particularly "Stevie," later Stephen Sondheim, who was a frequent house guest of the Hammersteins from his childhood on). Well researched and written, admiring but not fawning, SOMETHING WONDERFUL would make a fine present for the budding Broadway fan or performance wannabe. It shows how the "RH Factor" was formed, clicked, and serves almost as a “you-are-there†for each show’s inception, creation, performance and afterlife.If, after reading this biography, the reader's appetite for more Broadway is whetted, here's a good follow-up book: Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre.
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