When Present Boat opened at New York’s Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927, it marked a revolutionary second within the American musical theater.
Audiences had been confronted with a brand new sort of work which was neither a frothy operetta, nor a loosely constructed Jazz Age musical comedy. The Musical Play was born, with its critical, dramatic themes, and integration of music and dialogue.
An entry in The Full Guide of Gentle Opera contains this description:
Right here we come to a very new style – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now…the play was the factor, and all the pieces else was subservient to that play. Now…got here full integration of tune, humor and manufacturing numbers right into a single and inextricable creative entity.
It was the thought of composer Jerome Kern to adapt Edna Ferber’s 1926 novel, Present Boat, right into a musical. Removed from the exuberant escapism widespread on Broadway on the time, the story revolved round topics corresponding to racism, alcoholism, and marital strife. The motion takes place on a floating theater (the Cotton Blossom) on the Mississippi River throughout the 40 years spanning 1887 and 1927. Magnolia Ravenal, the naive daughter of the boat’s proprietor, falls in love with an enthralling gambler, Gaylord Ravenal. The couple marries, however Gaylord in the end leaves Magnolia, playing away their fortune. Julie LaVerne, a performer on the Cotton Blossom, loses her job when it’s revealed that she his half African-American. (Interracial marriage was forbidden within the Jim Crow south). In opposition to this backdrop, Joe, an African-American dock employee, feedback on human struggles and the everlasting circulate of time and the River (O’l Man River).
In keeping with theater historian, John Kenrick,
After the opening night time viewers filed out of the Ziegfeld Theatre in close to silence, Ziegfeld thought his worst fears had been confirmed. He was pleasantly stunned when the following morning introduced ecstatic critiques and lengthy strains on the field workplace. In reality, Present Boat proved to be probably the most lasting accomplishment of Ziegfeld’s profession – the one certainly one of his exhibits that’s recurrently carried out at the moment.
In collaboration with Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the lyrics and ebook, created one thing new and boldly dramatic. (Its advanced and nuanced portrayal of African-American characters alongside whites was as revolutionary as its kind). Present Boat planted the seeds for Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals to return. In his last years, Hammerstein mentored the younger Stephen Sondheim, who pushed the style to its zenith.
Listed here are seven key excerpts from Present Boat. A lot of the examples come from John McGlinn’s landmark 1988 cast album, with Karla Burns, Jerry Hadley, Bruce Hubbard, Frederica von Stade and Teresa Stratas with the Ambrosian Refrain and the London Sinfonietta. McGlinn, a conductor and musical theater archivist, restored the unique 1927 model, together with most of Kern’s underscoring music, with orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett.
Overture
Setting the stage for the turbulent drama to comply with, the unique Overture shouldn’t be the everyday melodic medley. One in every of its most outstanding themes is the shadowy Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun, minimize from the present throughout trials in Washington, D.C. Deemed extraneous to the drama, the theme establishes the ambiance earlier than the curtain rises.
The place’s the Mate for Me?/Make Imagine
On this prolonged musical sequence, we hear the seeds of the groundbreaking “Bench Scene” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Dreamy and tentative, the lyrics anticipate the indirectness of Hammerstein’s Individuals Will Say We’re in Love from Oklahoma!, and If I Beloved You (from Carousel’s “Bench Scene”). Kern’s melody gracefully recollects the Viennese operetta music of Franz Lehar.
At first of the primary act, this duet comes quickly after the preliminary assembly of the teenage Magnolia and Gaylord. Within the second act, simply earlier than leaving Magnolia on account of compulsive playing, Gaylord sings the tune to their younger daughter. He instructs her to sing it at any time when she is lonely, and to fake that he has by no means left.
Ol’ Man River
In 1951, the legendary American live performance bass-baritone William Warfield recorded Ol’ Man River in a single take for the soundtrack of the MGM movie model of Present Boat. This efficiency comes from the 1962 studio forged recording:
Can’t Assist Lovin’ Dat Man
When Julie sings this bluesy melody to Magnolia, the tune is quickly taken up by Queenie, the cook dinner, and a refrain of others.
You Are Love
Kern returns to the world of operetta on this gradual waltz ballad, sung by Magnolia and Gaylord:
Why do I Love You?
On this duet from the second act, Magnolia and Gaylord specific their persevering with love for each other, regardless of challenges:
Invoice
Initially, Jerome Kern wrote the tune Invoice with lyricist P. G. Wodehouse for the 1917 musical Oh, Woman! Woman!!. The melancholy and introspective tune was minimize from that present. Hammerstein revised the lyrics, and the tune was inserted into Present Boat‘s nightclub scene. Julie, now deserted by her white husband and succumbing to alcoholism, sings it as an audition tune.
Recordings
- Kern: Present Boat – John McGlinn / Frederica von Stade, Teresa Stratas, Jerry Hadley, Bruce Hubbard, Karla Burns, David Garrison, Paige O’Hara, Robert Nichols, Nancy Kulp, Lillian Gish Amazon
- Kern: Present Boat (1962 studio recording) Amazon
Featured Picture: a scene from the unique 1927 manufacturing of “Present Boat”
