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

7. My Fair Lady script, 55–56.

8. “Please Don’t Marry Me” in folder marked “Lyrics and Songs Not Used,” HLP, 34/8.

9. FLC, 5/24.

10. The lyric is also similar in mood to that of “Shy,” which is known to have been the precursor to “I Could Have Danced.”

11. Rex Harrison, Rex (London: Macmillan, 1974), 161.

12. Rex Harrison, A Damned Serious Business (London: Bantam, 1990), 140.

13. Lady Liza: Brief Outline, 4. HLP, 34/2.

14. Ibid.

15. Lerner, Street, 65–66 and 91–92.

16. Julie Andrews, Home, 201.

17. My Lady Liza: outline of scenes and musical numbers, 2. HHP, Series 4, 21/518.

18. Both versions are in FLC, 5/23.

19. My thanks to Elliot J. Cohen for sharing the transcript of his interview with Trude Rittmann (dated October 3, 1995) with me.

20. “I finished the lyric in twenty-four hours, but not to my satisfaction … I thought my lyric was earth-bound. There was one line in particular that made me blush when I sang it to Fritz. The line was: “And [sic] all at once my heart took flight.” I promised Fritz I would change it as soon as I could. As it turned out, I was never able to … [T]o this day the lyric gives me cardiac arrest.” Lerner, Street, 86.

21. A document titled “My Fair Lady: timing sheet” in the Levin Papers shows that the final version of act 1, scene 9 took 3ʹ 15ʺ to run. By contrast, the duration of “Come to the Ball” in the appendix of the Jay recording of My Fair Lady runs 3ʹ 24ʺ, which does not include the repeated choruses for the dancing; and “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” on the original soundtrack recording of Gigi runs 1ʹ 13ʺ.

22. Lerner, Street, 76–77 and 98.

23. Loewe’s autograph and his annotated copy of a copyist’s score are in FLC, 5/2 and 5/3; the full score is in WCC, 142/1; the remaining manuscripts are in WCC, 142/3.

24. My Fair Lady script, 121–22.

25. Ibid, 123.

26. Rittmann diverges from Bennett’s orchestrated version only from bar 212 on, where her version is a minor third higher than his.

27. The location of the scores in WCC is as follows: Freda Miller’s score, 142/7; conductor’s score for “Intro to Dress Ballet” plus a copy of Rittmann’s piano score, 142/6; the copy of the piano score with the modified ending in Rittmann’s hand, 142/7; Rittmann’s autograph for the new “Intro to Dress Ballet,” 142/7; Lang’s autograph full score for the “Intro” is at the back of the autograph full score for “Come to the Ball,” 142/1; Bennett’s autograph full score, 142/5.

28. Lerner to Pascal, May 10, 1952, TGC, box 137.

29. Lady Liza—Brief Outline, 4. HLP, 34/2.

30. Untitled scenic outline, 2, HLP, 34/2.

31. My Lady Liza outline, 2. Hanya Holm Papers, New York Public Library. Series 4, 21/518. All of Hanya Holm’s notes referenced in the rest of this chapter are from this same folder, unless otherwise noted.

32. Clearly by “vanishes” Holm means “removes” with added connotations of speed and of the dancers’ disappearance.

33. “Intro to Dress Ballet,” WCC, 142/7.

34. Full score to “Intro to Dress Ballet,” WCC, 142/1.

35. Lerner, Street, 152.

36. “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” in folder marked “Lyrics and Songs Not Used,” HLP, 34/8. The line “Gracious, proud and refine” was probably intended to read “refined.”

37. “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” piano-vocal score, marked “FA,” WCC, 147/2. “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” from Gigi Song Album (London, 1958), 11–13.

38. “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” and “Bridge after Prayer” orchestrations, WCC, 151/5.

39. Jeremy Gerard, “Stars Perform in Memorial Tribute to Composer Frederick Loewe,” New York Times, March 29, 1988.

CHAPTER 5

1. The main difference is in the line “With one enormous chair,” which originally read “With one gigantic chair”; the copyist’s lyrics read “gigantic,” but the word has been struck through in pencil and replaced with “enormous.” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?,” copyist’s piano-vocal score, marked “Russell” in Trude Rittmann’s handwriting on the front cover, WCC, 154/5.

2. Loewe, “Overture” autograph, FLC, 5/17.

3. ‘Lang takes credit for My Fair Lady’s “With a Little Bit of Luck,” “The Ascot Gavotte,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “The Embassy Waltz,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and “Without You,” the remainder (including the Overture) being Bennett’s contributions. Robert Russell Bennett with George J Ferencz, ed., The Broadway Sound: The Autobiography and Selected Essays of Robert Russell Bennett, Eastman Studies in Music, (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1999), 228.

4. See Lerner, Street, 59–60. Lerner also says that the lyric for this song initially caused him agony, as a result of the lack of confidence he derived from Mary Martin’s negative reaction to the songs. After receiving psychiatric help, however, Lerner says that the words took him only two days to write. Street, 66–67.

5. “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” lyric sheet, HLP, 34/8.

6. “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” lyric sheet, WCC, 151/6.

7. There is one notational discrepancy: Loewe has a D sharp in the second beat of the two-bar introduction to the refrain, which is adhered to in Bennett’s orchestration but is left as a natural in the copyist’s vocal score and both of the published vocal scores.

8. See chap. 5. For Rodgers’s approach to song writing, see Tim Carter, Oklahoma! The Making of an American Musical (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 118–20. “As is typical of Rodgers’s sketches, the Oklahoma! ones are presented on a single stave, with the melody, some indications of one or more inner parts, and, very occasionally, roman numerals to indicate the harmony.” This is almost the same as Loewe’s apparent evolution of “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” (and a large number of non-My Fair Lady songs), though the roman numerals are less of a feature of his method than they are of Rodgers’s.

9. Lerner, Street, 49–50.

10. “Just You Wait”: lyric sheet, HLP, 34/8; copyist’s score, WCC, 148/3.

11. The score is initialed “R.B.” in the top righthand corner.

12. “Musical Synopsis (2),” envelope titled “Franz Allers Lyrics,” WCC, 151/6.

13. Lerner, Street, 84.

14. Julie Andrews confirms this chronology. Andrews, Home, 201.

15. Lerner, Street, 86.

16.