CDs: Grieg Goes Broadway
In 1942, the team of Robert Wright and George Forrest were completing a seven-year contract as staff composer-lyricists at MGM. At the studio, the team had had occasion to fashion new lyrics to pre-existing music by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and Richard Rodgers. So it was not surprising when producer Edwin Lester, founder and director of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Civic Light Operas, approached Wright and Forrest with the notion of adapting the music of Norway's most beloved composer, Edvard Grieg 1843-1907, and writing lyrics for a musical suggested by events in Grieg's life.
The model for this sort of thing was Blossom Time 1921, a show loosely based on the life of Franz Schubert and featuring Sigmund Romberg's adaptation of Schubert for the score. Lester wanted an operetta on a spectacular scale, even though Wright and Forrest pointed out that there hadn't been a successful Broadway operetta since the '20s and The New Moon. By this time, operetta was virtually dead, turning up as a subject for ridicule by sketch artists like The Revuers Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Judy Holliday, Leonard Bernstein.
It was always planned that the finale of the Grieg show would be a big ballet danced to the composer's A-minor piano concerto. With that in mind, Lester hired George Balanchine to do the choreography and selected distinguished members of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to dance it.
Based on a play by Homer Curran, Milton Lazarus's book for Song of Norway would focus on four characters, three of them taken from real life. Edvard and his dearest friend, poet-composer Rikaard Nordraak, want to see Norway take its place as a country of art and music, and Nordraak believes that Grieg is the man who can accomplish that dream. Meanwhile, Edvard is distracted from Nina, the young woman he loves, by Italian opera diva Countess Luisa Giovanni, who takes him off to Rome. The death of Nordraak brings Edvard back home to marry Nina and to fulfill his destiny as Norway's musical ambassador. Luisa and her plot were fictitious, but the other characters were taken from Grieg's actual story, with Henrik Ibsen also figuring in the action.
The biggest name in the Song of Norway cast was Metropolitan opera mezzo Irra Petina, playing the Italian prima donna. Petina would go on to create the role of the Old Lady in Candide. Nina was Helena Bliss, and Nordraak was Robert Shafer, who would later play Joe Boyd in Damn Yankees. When Song of Norway had its world premiere in Los Angeles in June, 1944, Met baritone Walter Cassel played Grieg. During the tryout, Cassel was replaced by Lawrence Brooks.
Song of Norway struck just the right nostalgic chord with wartime audiences, opening to mostly favorable reviews on August 21, 1944 at the Imperial Theatre. It went on to a fine run of 860 performances, and was also a success 526 performances at London's Palace Theatre.
While the spectacle and dance were of great help, Song of Norway's success was largely due to Wright and Forrest's skillful adaptation of the Grieg material. The song that made it to the charts was "Strange Music," which, although suggested by the harmonic structure of one of Grieg's pieces, was almost entirely a Wright and Forest original. On the other hand, Nina's "I Love You" was a straightforward translation of Grieg's song "Ich Liebe Dich."
Song of Norway was Wright and Forrest's first Broadway show, and it set a pattern. The team would go on to adapt the work of celebrated composers for such other shows as Kismet Borodin, Magdalena Villa-Lobos, Gypsy Lady Herbert, Anya Rachmaninoff, and Dumas and Son Saint-Saens. Wright and Forrest also wrote original musicals, including Kean and Grand Hotel. Norway's original Grieg, Lawrence Brooks, turned up as standby for Alfred Drake in Kean.
Petina seems to have had an exclusive contract with Columbia Records, for when Decca made the Broadway cast album of Song of Norway, Petina was not permitted to preserve her Luisa Giovanni, and Decca artist Kitty Carlisle sings in her place. Petina made her own Norway album of six 78 sides for Columbia, singing both Luisa's songs and others, and joined on two of the tracks by another Met singer, Robert Weede.
In 1958, Song of Norway was produced in the open-air Jones Beach Marine Theatre, and that production produced a very enjoyable Norway recording, a Columbia LP never on CD starring John Reardon, Helena Scott, Brenda Lewis, William Olvis, and comedian Sig Arno, repeating his role of the Count from the original '44 cast.
There's a 1960 English HMV studio LP, featuring Thomas Round, Norma Hughes, John Lawrenson, and Victoria Elliott. Norway gets one side of the nine-LP Reader's Digest/RCA boxed set A Treasury of Great Operettas. In 1992, Norway got its first complete recording, a double-CD set from JAY featuring Valerie Masterson, Donald Maxwell, and David Rendall. And there's also ABC's soundtrack from the disastrous 1970 film version, starring Florence Henderson, Toralv Maurstad, and Frank Porretta.
Decca Broadway has now reissued the 1944 Broadway cast album. A fairly comprehensive set for its time, this recording was shorn of about eight minutes on its LP releases. All of that material has been restored on the new CD.
The three Broadway leads are stirring, big-voiced singers. And with its numerous bits of dialogue, this is a recording with a lot of personality. Carlisle is well-suited to her role and much easier to understand than Petina. Still, one regrets that this CD could not include as bonuses a couple of Petina's Luisa tracks. You may wish to burn your own CD, combining the new release with the Petina set so that Irra can at last join her fellow Broadway cast members.
Song of Norway was revived by New York City Opera in 1981, but it's not likely to have another major local staging. So recordings will probably be the only way to experience it. I love the score and the original Broadway album, but you will need to have a taste for operetta to enjoy them. In any case, this is a major show title from the Decca catalogue, and it's good to have it back in a fresh remastering.
And now for the bad news. Owing to a production error, the first copies of the new Norway CD feature the identical material --the finale-- as tracks #12 and #15. In #12, the finale replaces the material that should be heard in that spot, "Nordraak's Farewell" and the reprise of "Three Loves." Decca Broadway is withdrawing the CD and will be reissuing it shortly with the correct track #12. So proceed with caution, as the faulty Norway CD may already be on sale at some stores.
________________________________________________
For upcoming Q & A columns, please send questions by clicking on the byline above kenmanbway@aol.com