The Lyrics of Leonard Bernstein

The era when the musical was stage on Broadway was an exciting period for the American musical theatre. Shows homogeneous Oklahoma!, Carousel and others were revolutionizing the musical and setting the stage for many another(prenominal) much to follow. As film critic Richard Corliss states, it was a magical eon in Broadway history, "When On The townspeople receptive in 1944, New York, New York really was a helluva town. And Broadway was one fab art form. Oklahoma!, cornpone revolutionizer of the musical, was playing nearby, and Carousel was active to open. Kurt Weill, Sigmund Romberg, Cole Porter and Harold Arlen all had bare-assed manoeuvres. As for the new kids, two of On The Town's creators were 31: Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the co-stars who wrote the show. Two were 26: composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins" (Corliss 1).

wish well many successful Broadway shows of this era, if not all of them, Hollywood distinguishable to make and release the film version of On The Town in 1949, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. For the film version, a good deal of Bernstein's brassy score was replaced and instead tunes that had more razzmatazz were inserted. The film was exuberant and brash, and it was filmed on mending a relatively rare phenomena in 1940s studio Hollywood. The movie is light and bouncy, but the long serious ballet near the end of the film tends to kill the earlier manner of exuberance it exhibits. As one film critic at the time suggests

"On The Town." hypertext transfer protocol://www.botz.com/nytheatre/ontown.htm Dec. 19, 1998: 1-3.

Halliwell, L. Halliwell's Film Guide. (4th edit.) Charles Scribner's Sons, NY: 1983.

"Bernstein, Leonard." Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia CD-ROM. 1993-1996: 1.

Part of the enormous popularity of some(prenominal) the stage and screen versions of On The Town at the time of their release was the fact that it deals with three sailors on leave in New York during World War II. Anything regarding soldiers and World War II was warmly received by the American public who tangle their country had just rid the world of its greatest enemy with the defeat of Adolph Hitler in the mid-1940s. However, the new version of the play opened in 1998 and critics seem to praise it with the same exuberance that met the opening move of the original in 1944, despite the fact that Americans have start less sentimental and patriotic over the concept of war. As one critic states, "Wolfe's On The Town is a sensory achievement and a superb entertainment, easily the finest musical show to land on Broadway since Titanic. From the joyously exuberant opening to the achingly bittersweet finale, this bountiful valentine to a bygone era moves us to laugh and tears, often at the same moment" (On The Town 2). champion can see that a big part of the keep popularity of this show is the passionate and exuberant musical composition by Bernstein and the timelessly humorous book by Comden and Green
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