Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies), McHugh, Dominic [fantasy books to read TXT] 📗

Loewe for the majority of the number’s 271 bars, yet makes a fluent composition that is fit to stand on its own. The ballet begins with a further eight-bar introduction (on top of “Intro to Dress Ballet”) that gives way to a busy expositional passage to accompany the arrival of the Tailor to start work on Eliza. Bars 19–107 are based mostly on two motives from the central section of “Come to the Ball” (the part that returns in “Accustomed to Her Face”): example 4.11 derives from the line “I can see you now in a gown by Madame Worth, when you enter ev’ry monocle will crash” in “Come to the Ball”; and example 4.12 comes from “Little chaps’ll wish they were Atlas, a queen will want you for her son” (which matches the line “She’ll try to teach the things I taught her, and end up selling flowers instead” in “Accustomed”). Rittmann moves freely through keys in her arrangement and goes from examples 4.11 to 4.12 and back again; this not only reflects the order in which the material appeared in the song—thereby giving the ballet music some structure—but also portrays the music as a ghostly, jumbled-up reminiscence of Higgins’s coaxing words echoing in Eliza’s head. Such a process adds a psychological dimension to the music’s surface task of accompanying the actions of the dancers.

Ex. 4.10. “Intro to Dress Ballet.”

Ex. 4.11. “Dress Ballet,” bars 19–27.

Ex. 4.12. “Dress Ballet,” bars 36–39.

Ex. 4.13. “Dress Ballet,” bars 68–74.

The hairdressers enter at bar 36, then at bar 57 Rittmann changes tack and uses two different motives in quick succession. A hint of the opening line of “Why Can’t the English?” in 68–70 is immediately followed by the “I think she’s got it!” theme from “The Rain in Spain” in 71–74. The effect of this is that Higgins’s song about the inadequacies of education is juxtaposed with his memorable expression of delight at the success of his lessons on Eliza; now she has to aim for the same triumph in a different kind of lesson (ex. 4.13). This is repeated a tone higher, then at bar 84, example 4.12 returns, this time in a much lower register, to herald the entrance of the masseuse. Freda Miller’s score is particularly helpful at this point, marking out gestures such as “prance,” “roll sleeves,” “clap,” and “knee bends.” At the beginning of a rising passage from bar 108, a book is placed on Eliza’s head, presumably to teach her to walk with a better posture, and after the buildup of a repeated accompaniment pattern in double octaves by full strings, the beginning of “Wouldn’t it be Loverly?” is sounded in the trumpets and flute at 120 (ex. 4.14).

Ex. 4.14. “Dress Ballet,” bars 120–125.

Ex. 4.15. “Dress Ballet,” bars 154–159.

Ex. 4.16. “Dress Ballet,” bars 169–172.

The ostinato continues until bar 135, gradually calming down to pianississimo. There is a three-bar silence before the next part of the ballet begins. The Dance Master arrives to teach Eliza the tango, and in a piece of irony “The Rain in Spain” is heard in the underscore. What had been a spontaneous and free dance of jubilation after her success in learning how to speak properly in the middle of the act has now become yet another chore for Eliza. Again, Miller’s score gives us details about the choreography, with comments such as “low jeté lunge,” “double reverse turn,” “tango step,” “shows to Vera [Lee, the Dance Mistress],” and “curtsey.” All of this is accompanied by a straight playing of the first ten bars of “The Rain in Spain,” but a two-bar transition passage introduces a new episode titled “The Lesson” (ex. 4.15). Above the right-hand part, Rittmann wrote “insistent vamp!” and the music indeed takes on a strict, rigorous air. The melody in bars 156–59 (C sharp–D–F natural) is a deliberate distortion of the line “On the plain!” from “The Rain in Spain”; it follows on from the extract from the song heard in the previous section and, allotted by Bennett to a solo clarinet (“mf sweet”), again acts as an illustration of Eliza’s mental confusion.

At 169 a faster section (marked Più mosso) begins. Although two-fifths of the music remains, this feels like the beginning of the end; the tension never lets up until the final bars of the ballet. The Più mosso section is based on a descending chromatic pattern, on top of which is floated a muted trumpet fanfare, shown in the melody line of bars 171–72 in example 4.16. The same material persists until bar 183, when example 4.12 returns once more. It is worth noting that in the full score, bars 186–89 have been rewritten by Phil Lang; the change increases the harmonic tension by adding new rising chromatic scales in the strings and tuba. This leads more dramatically into the return of example 4.12, which then continues until bar 210. At this point the music whips up into a frenzy, with the dynamic at fortissimo and the whole orchestra breaking into the chorus of “With a Little Bit of Luck.” This develops into a free melody that adds sinister chromatic inflections to Doolittle’s jaunty song. A rising sequence begins at 227, reaching its height at 245 when the same bar is repeated four times before a huge glissando into the opening of the melody of “The Servants’ Chorus” (“Poor Professor Higgins,” ex. 4.17). This is marked furioso and fff; Rittmann’s score also has “climax” and “howling!” After the theme has been played twice tutti, there is a diminuendo while the cellos and trombones sound the theme one last time, and the music ends softly and mysteriously.

The harmonic complexity of the “Dress Ballet” may be considered both a strength and a weakness. Since Holm conceived it as a “nightmare,” it is suitable that the music should be ghoulish both on the fundamental level of Rittmann’s arrangement and the