My fair lady
| Musical dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | My fair lady |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Frederick Loewe |
| Book: | Alan Jay Lerner |
| Lyrics: | Alan Jay Lerner |
| Literary source: | Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw |
| Premiere: | March 15, 1956 |
| Place of premiere: | New York , Mark Hellinger Theater |
| Place and time of the action: | in and around London, 1912 |
| Roles / people | |
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My Fair Lady is a musical with music by Frederick Loewe and a book and lyrics by Alan J. Lerner . Was produced My Fair Lady by Herman Levin, the television company for financing CBS won. The director was Moss Hart , the choreography was done by Hanya Holm , and it was conducted by Franz Allers . The musical is an adaptation of Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion .
The name of the musical, which had not been decided before the rehearsals, was chosen - according to the conductor of the premiere, Franz Allers - by the director Moss Hart. It is the last line of the first stanza of the well-known English nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down .
After test performances at the Shubert Theater New Haven, Connecticut from February 15, 1956, the world premiere took place on March 15, 1956 at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York . The costly production with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison was enthusiastically received, My Fair Lady ran for six and a half years on Broadway and had a total of 2,717 performances.
The post-production of the New York production in London's West End , also directed by Hart and starring Andrews and Harrison, premiered two years later, on April 30, 1958, at the Drury Lane Theater . The musical ran for five and a half years and reached 2,281 performances.
The translation into German using Berlin was written by Robert Gilbert , who was highly praised for his work. Gilbert also wrote a version adapted to Viennese with the cabaret artist Gerhard Bronner . The German-language premiere took place on October 25, 1961 in the Theater des Westens in Berlin . Karin Hübner , Paul Hubschmid , Alfred Schieske , Agnes Windeck , Friedrich Schoenfelder and Rex Gildo played in the production by Sven Aage Larsen .
Emergence
The idea for the musical comes from Gabriel Pascal . Pascal had acquired the rights to some Shaw plays in the mid-1930s and produced the film Pygmalion - The novel of a flower girl in 1938 , but George Bernard Shaw did not release his comedy for setting. Only after his death could the musical project be tackled after long negotiations with Shaw's heirs. Pascal approached composers and lyricists such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II , Leonard Bernstein , Gian Carlo Menotti , Betty Comden and Adolph Green with the suggestion of a musical arrangement, but it was not until Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe that he met with interest.
My Fair Lady is an adaptation of the comedy Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which premiered on October 16, 1913 in the Vienna Burgtheater (in German translation) , which in turn is based on the ancient myth of Pygmalion , a legendary, sculptural king who turns into one of his self-made statue fell in love. References to Gottfried Keller's story Regine and the historical person Elise Egloff are also conceivable. The changes in the musical plot compared to the literary model come in part from the British film Pygmalion - The novel of a flower girl by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard , on whose script Shaw himself had worked and for which he and others received an Oscar in 1939 .
In contrast to My Fair Lady , for Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion , Eliza is merely an experimental object that he uses for his own edification. While in My Fair Lady a love affair between Eliza and Higgins develops from the experiment, in Pygmalion Eliza's love remains unrequited. After the performance in the opera, which in the musical becomes a performance at a ball, Higgins sends Eliza out of the house. He has now laid the foundation for her future, and she should be glad that he doesn't ask for money for it. Eliza leaves the house with tears and finally marries her friend Freddy, who has been making advances to her all along.
action
Professor Higgins, a respected philologist and phonetician , meets the flower seller Eliza Doolittle after an opera visit at the flower market near Covent Garden in London . He takes their powerful, vulgar language, which is embellished with a strong Cockney accent in the English version and often with Berlinerisch or Viennese in the German version, as an example of the deformation of the mother tongue (Can't nobody teach the children? / Why Can ' t the English?). Higgins believes that humans define themselves not by their origin but by their language; Even a flower girl like Eliza, according to Higgins, could improve her status and be a recognized lady, even run a respectable flower shop, if she could speak correct English.
Eliza is charmed by this idea, the wishes she expresses are modest: "A little room with a sofa in it, gas lighting, chocolates and never more cold legs" - (Wouldn't it be sore? / Wouldn't It be Loverly?) . She has to fight for a living every day and also support her father, Alfred P. Doolittle, who regularly struggles through life at her expense. Doolittle has managed to live according to his style in a certain way, which he celebrates with two drinking buddies (Mit 'nem kleenen piece of luck / With a Little Bit of Luck). He rejects all responsibility and morals and lives into the day. In this way “socially” burdened and without schooling, it seems as if Eliza has no chance of ever getting beyond the status of a poor flower girl.
Eliza takes Higgins' talk at face value and shows up at the professor's house for language lessons. The matter is hardly worth discussing by Higgins, so his friend Colonel Pickering suggests a bet: If Higgins could turn Eliza into a lady within six months, he would pay for the training. Eliza's "final exam" is said to be the diplomatic ball at Buckingham Palace . Higgins accepts the bet, Eliza is assigned a room in his house, and a difficult apprenticeship begins with the die-hard bachelor. Eliza has to practice speaking from morning to evening, is treated gruffly and condescendingly by Higgins, so that the lessons are more like dressage. Eliza is seething with rage and dreams of revenge (Just You Wait).
Eliza finally succeeds in her phonetic breakthrough: She speaks “g” instead of “j”, “ei” instead of “e” and not “i” but “ü” (It is green so green / The Rain in Spain). This is celebrated euphorically, and the completely cranked Eliza finds no sleep that night (I would have danced tonight / I Could Have Danced All Night). Now Eliza has to pass the test run in high society. Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering select the horse race at Ascot . Eliza is given strict guidelines for the conversation; she is allowed to talk about the weather and health. But even these seemingly innocuous topics have their pitfalls, as Eliza reports to the high society in the best of English, that her aunt has been "screwed up". A little later, she shocked the audience by cheering on her horse while running with the exclamation: "Run faster or I'll sprinkle pepper up your ass!"
Her unconventional appearance in Ascot gives her an admirer from better circles: Freddy Eynsford-Hill is very fond of the pretty and refreshing Eliza. He begins to patrol her street in the hope that Eliza will leave the house one day (In the street, my darling, where you live / On the Street Where You Live). He also writes her love letters and sends flowers. The beloved doesn't notice much of it. She can speak now, but her education still leaves a lot to be desired. When the big evening approaches, Eliza is able to shine at the diplomatic ball at Buckingham Palace. She enchants with her extraordinary and graceful nature. It is puzzled who the beautiful stranger is. The Hungarian phonetician Prof. Zoltan Karpathy, a former student of Higgins, tries to shed light on the darkness. To Higgins and Pickering's edification, his diagnosis is: You can only speak this clean English abroad, in his opinion Eliza is a Hungarian princess!
On the same evening, Higgins and Pickering congratulate each other on a job well done. They pat each other on the shoulders (You Did It) and celebrate their triumph. Eliza feels left out; it was trained, worked, but the fame goes solely to the professor for whom it won the bet. She lets Higgins understand how disrespected and humiliated she feels. When asked what should become of her, Higgins accuses her of ingratitude. He thinks she is a stupid child and is all the more astonished when Eliza disappeared the next day.
Together with Freddy Eynsford-Hill, who is on guard in front of Higgins' house (Do it! / Show Me), she visits the district of London where she was at home six months ago. But there it is no longer recognized. She is now too fine for a flower woman, but she lacks the money for a fine lady. Eliza decides to teach phonetics herself and marry Freddy.
When she confronts Prof. Higgins with this decision, he realizes that he misses Eliza (I'm used to her face / I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face), which Eliza hears because she is about to pick up some things wants to happen to be in the professor's house. My Fair Lady ends in a conciliatory way, but remains open: While there is a later resolution formulated by the poet for Shaw's original (Eliza actually marries Freddy), Lerner commented: "I don't know whether Shaw is right."
music
title
Act I.
- Why Can't the English? (Can't nobody teach the children)
- Wouldn't It be Loverly? (Wouldn't it be sore?)
- With a Little Bit of Luck (with a little bit of luck)
- I'm an Ordinary Man (I'm a man like any man)
- Just You Wait
- The Servant's Chorus
- The Rain in Spain (It's so green)
- I Could Have Danced All Night (I would have danced tonight)
- Ascot Gavotte
- On the Street Where You Live (In the street my darling where you live)
Act II
- The Embassy Waltz
- You Did It (You Did It)
- Show Me (do it!)
- Get Me to the Church on Time (Get me to the altar on time)
- A Hymn to Him (Can't a woman be like a man)
- Without You
- I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face (I'm used to her face)
Orchestra / sound
The original orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang consisted of: flute, piccolo, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet (2), bassoon, horn (2), trumpet (3), trombone, bass trombone, tuba, percussion (2) , Harp, violin, viola, violoncello, double bass.
For a re-performance at the Royal National Theater (London), the musical producer Cameron Mackintosh commissioned William David Brohn for a new orchestration, she uses the following instruments: Fl / Pic / Klar , Klar / Es-Klar / Fl, Ob / EH , Fag / BarSax / BassKlar , Hr (2), Trp / FlgHr / cornet (2), Pos / Basspos / Euphonium , Schl , Hf , Key , Vi (4), Va , Vc , Kb
filming
My Fair Lady was made into a film in 1964 directed by George Cukor with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the lead roles, see My Fair Lady (film) .
Awards
Theater World Award 1956
- for John Michael King in the role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Tony Award 1957
- Best musical
- Best Actor (Rex Harrison)
- Best Set Design (Oliver Smith)
- Best musical director (Franz Allers)
- Best Costumes ( Cecil Beaton )
- Best Director ( Moss Hart )
Others
- The musical is parodied in the Simpsons episode "A Perfect Gentleman" (My Fair Laddy).
- The episode "Love Amidst the Stars" of the series Spaceship Voyager also uses the plot of the musical.
- The soundtrack to the musical is the most successful album in chart history in Germany to date (with 208 weeks in the top 10 and 88 in number 1).
Publications on CD
- My Fair Lady - Original Broadway Cast (Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Robert Coote , John Michael King) Universe UN 2 014
- Loewe: My Fair Lady (complete recording) (Original London Cast) Scl (Sony BMG)
- My Fair Lady (cross-section), (cast of the German premiere with the orchestra "Theater des Westens", Paul Hubschmid, Karin Hübner, Friedrich Schoenfelder, Rex Gildo ) Philipps (Universal)
- Loewe: My Fair Lady (Viennese version), (Orchestra of the Theater an der Wien , Josef Meinrad , Hugo Gottschlich , Gabriele Jacoby), Preiser
- My Fair Lady (Full Shot), (Studio Cast: Kiri Te Kanawa, Jeremy Irons, John Gielgud, Jerry Hadley, Warren Mitchell) Decca
- Modern Jazz Performances Of Songs From My Fair Lady ( Shelly Manne & Friends) (Shelly Manne, André Previn , Leroy Vinnegar ) Contemporary Records
literature
- Günter Bartosch: The whole world of musicals. Englisch-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-88140-104-0 .
- Sabine Coelsch-Foisner / Joachim Brügge (eds.): My Fair Lady. A transdisciplinary introduction , Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8253-6519-6 .
- Wolfgang Jansen : My Fair Lady, the German premiere in 1961 in the Berlin " Theater des Westens " (= small writings of the society for entertaining theatrical art , volume 1). Weidler, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-925191-85-2 .
- Günter Kortus: My Fair Lady (= The Opera. Series of publications on musical stage works ). Lienau, Berlin 1977, DNB 550445811 (also published: sample booklet ).
- Alan Jay Lerner: My Fair Lady. Text book. Texts and verses by Alan Jay Lerner. Music by Frederick Loewe. After Shaw's Pygmalion. German by Robert Gilbert. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1962; Knaur-TB, Munich 1963.
- George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion. Romance in five acts. (OT: Pygmalion. ) Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-38359-0 .
Web links
- My Fair Lady in the Internet Broadway Database (IBDB)
- My Fair Lady , entry on the website of the Kultur Fibel Verlag
Individual evidence
- ^ Otto Schneidereit: Operetta AZ . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1983, p. 196.
- ↑ Wolf-Dieter Matern: Kiss of Death and Broadway Mafia . Program booklet for My Fair Lady of the Dresden State Operetta , season 2018/19, pp. 10–17 with further references. The original translation of the nursery rhyme is "My beautiful lady". Other possible word games, such as B. "Meine Markt-Frau" (from English fair = market, fair, fair) or a Cockney- English allusion to the London district of Mayfair , which is especially famous for its shopping miles, are not documented.
- ↑ Christian Walther: A friend, a good friend. Robert Gilbert - song writer between Schlager and world revolution. CH Links, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-96289-056-8 , pp. 279f.
- ↑ The Independent My Lady Fair or Foul? ( Memento of December 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), December 20, 2007
