Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber by Geoffrey Block Page B
Authors: Geoffrey Block
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most of the initial run of the show that opened on November 21, 1934 (as well the scenes and songs seen and heard in the Off-Broadway Revival of 1962 and the Vivian Beaumont Revival of 1987). As in the case of most musicals from any period (and many eighteenth-century operas), additional songs were tried and then discarded during tryouts or during the early weeks of the first New York run. In act I, scene 2, “Bon Voyage” was originally juxtaposed, then ingeniously combined, with another song, “There’s No Cure like Travel,” a song that interestingly contains the main musical material of “Bon Voyage.” 7 Just as Mozart composed the easier-to-sing aria “Dalla sua pace” to accommodate the Viennese singer in
Don Giovanni
who was unable to negotiate the demands of the aria from the original Prague production (“Il mio tesoro”), Porter composed “All through the Night” in this scene for Gaxton (Billy Crocker) to replace the difficult-to-sing “Easy to Love.”
Another song intended for this scene, “Kate the Great,” was, according to the recollection of
Anything Goes
orchestrator Hans Spialek, rejected by Ethel Merman who “vouldn’t sing it” because it was a “
durr-ty
song!” 8 A song planned as a tongue-in-cheek romantic duet in act I, scene 6, between Hope and Billy, “Waltz down the Aisle” (which bears striking melodic and rhythmic similarities as well as a similar dramatic purpose to “Wunderbar” from Porter’s
Kiss Me, Kate
) was also dropped from
Anything Goes
. A song forHope in act II, scene 1, “What a Joy to Be Young,” was deleted before the Broadway premiere. 9
One song in the beginning of the Broadway run, “Buddie, Beware,” was replaced by a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You” within a few weeks. In order to understand the artistic implications of this change it is necessary to recall Porter’s original motivation. Composers of musicals before (or after) the Rodgers and Hammerstein era could not, of course, always predict which song would become a hit. Nevertheless, they almost invariably tried to place their best bets
after
an opening number, usually for chorus. In
Anything Goes
Porter tried something more unusual. Instead of opening with a chorus, Porter decided to begin less conventionally with a potential hit song for Ethel Merman five minutes into the show, “I Get a Kick Out of You.”
Porter’s reasons for beginning with what he felt would be the hit of the show may have been somewhat perverse. According to Kreuger, Porter’s “society friends thought it was amusing to drift into the theatre fifteen or twenty minutes after the curtain had gone up, so that all their friends could observe what they were wearing.” 10 Porter therefore “warned his friends for weeks before the opening that they had better arrive on time or they would miss the big song.” 11 There is no record that Merman objected to “Buddie, Beware” in act II, scene 2, for the same reason she objected to a song about the sexual exploits of Catherine (Kate) the Great. Her objections in this case were practical rather than moral: the show needed a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You” “for the benefit of those who had arrived late!” 12 If this undocumented anecdote is to be believed, Porter, who had earlier agreed to cut “Kate the Great,” was again willing to accommodate his star and cut “Buddie, Beware.” 13
The history of
Anything Goes
after its premiere in 1934 differs markedly from the fate of
Show Boat
discussed in the previous chapter. The original 1927 Broadway version of
Show Boat
was superseded by Kern and Hammerstein’s own rethinking of the work in the 1946 revival that included a reworked book, several deleted songs and a brand new one, and new orchestrations. As we have seen, after Hammerstein’s death in 1960, the 1971 London and 1994 Broadway
Show Boat
revivals presented conflated versions of the musical that included songs from various earlier stage
Don Giovanni
who was unable to negotiate the demands of the aria from the original Prague production (“Il mio tesoro”), Porter composed “All through the Night” in this scene for Gaxton (Billy Crocker) to replace the difficult-to-sing “Easy to Love.”
Another song intended for this scene, “Kate the Great,” was, according to the recollection of
Anything Goes
orchestrator Hans Spialek, rejected by Ethel Merman who “vouldn’t sing it” because it was a “
durr-ty
song!” 8 A song planned as a tongue-in-cheek romantic duet in act I, scene 6, between Hope and Billy, “Waltz down the Aisle” (which bears striking melodic and rhythmic similarities as well as a similar dramatic purpose to “Wunderbar” from Porter’s
Kiss Me, Kate
) was also dropped from
Anything Goes
. A song forHope in act II, scene 1, “What a Joy to Be Young,” was deleted before the Broadway premiere. 9
One song in the beginning of the Broadway run, “Buddie, Beware,” was replaced by a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You” within a few weeks. In order to understand the artistic implications of this change it is necessary to recall Porter’s original motivation. Composers of musicals before (or after) the Rodgers and Hammerstein era could not, of course, always predict which song would become a hit. Nevertheless, they almost invariably tried to place their best bets
after
an opening number, usually for chorus. In
Anything Goes
Porter tried something more unusual. Instead of opening with a chorus, Porter decided to begin less conventionally with a potential hit song for Ethel Merman five minutes into the show, “I Get a Kick Out of You.”
Porter’s reasons for beginning with what he felt would be the hit of the show may have been somewhat perverse. According to Kreuger, Porter’s “society friends thought it was amusing to drift into the theatre fifteen or twenty minutes after the curtain had gone up, so that all their friends could observe what they were wearing.” 10 Porter therefore “warned his friends for weeks before the opening that they had better arrive on time or they would miss the big song.” 11 There is no record that Merman objected to “Buddie, Beware” in act II, scene 2, for the same reason she objected to a song about the sexual exploits of Catherine (Kate) the Great. Her objections in this case were practical rather than moral: the show needed a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You” “for the benefit of those who had arrived late!” 12 If this undocumented anecdote is to be believed, Porter, who had earlier agreed to cut “Kate the Great,” was again willing to accommodate his star and cut “Buddie, Beware.” 13
The history of
Anything Goes
after its premiere in 1934 differs markedly from the fate of
Show Boat
discussed in the previous chapter. The original 1927 Broadway version of
Show Boat
was superseded by Kern and Hammerstein’s own rethinking of the work in the 1946 revival that included a reworked book, several deleted songs and a brand new one, and new orchestrations. As we have seen, after Hammerstein’s death in 1960, the 1971 London and 1994 Broadway
Show Boat
revivals presented conflated versions of the musical that included songs from various earlier stage
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