Prelude, Fugue & Riffs: Spring/Summer 2009

More Peter Pan

The 2008-2009 season finds celebrations all over the world commemorating the 90th birthday of Leonard Bernstein. Unique among the many concerts and productions occurring during this period are the first performances of the complete songs and incidental music of Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan.

But first, a little bit of the history leading up to these performances.

In 1997, I learned that nearly 50 years earlier (1950), Leonard Bernstein had composed a theatrical score for a production of Sir J.M. Barrie's classic play, Peter Pan, and that there was a song entitled Dream With Me that had been cut from the original production. I knew some of the songs from the show already, but this new information piqued my curiosity completely. I thought that if there was one song cut from the original production, there might be more music existing that met a similar fate. Thus began a project that lasted seven years.

Bernstein's score for the 1950 Broadway production of Peter Pan included dances, instrumental interludes, and 6 songs: Who Am I?, Build My House, Neverland, Peter, Peter, Pirate Song and Plank Round. With the help of The Leonard Bernstein Office and the Library of Congress, I examined the composer's manuscript material and discovered that in addition to Dream With Me, several other cues, including Captain Hook's Soliloquy (a major aria for Hook that opens the last act) and music for Tinkerbell's death scene had also been cut. These efforts resulted in a recording of the complete score, with all of the songs and incidental music for Peter Pan heard together for the first time. The CD, released by Koch International Classics, features Broadway superstar Linda Eder and acclaimed baritone Daniel Narducci, with myself conducting.

Now, cut to this banner season and enter two visionary stage directors on two different continents: Tito da Costa in Lisbon, Portugal; and Albert Ihde in Santa Barbara, California. Both had heard my Peter Pan CD and invited me to conduct their own productions.

Tito staged and produced the world premiere of the concert version of the score, with narration adapted by Nina Bernstein Simmons from the original Barrie novel Peter and Wendy. Albert, working with his wife and producing partner Ellen Pasternack, directed and produced the first staged production of the Barrie play to incorporate the complete, uncut score.

The Lisbon concerts were held outdoors on a large stage in a beautiful park directly by the ocean and were attended by several thousand very enthusiastic listeners. It included a marvelous cast from Great Britain, a Portuguese chorus and a full symphony orchestra. The narrator was the great British actress Geraldine James. Tito staged the production, featuring a huge screen behind the performing forces onto which various images were projected.

The Santa Barbara Theatre production was a thrilling event for the Southern California theater scene. Albert's superb directing included a great cast and beautifully elaborate sets and costumes. We also had a wonderful orchestra in the pit. Each of the 14 performances at Santa Barbara's historic Lobero Theater left its audience thoroughly impressed by the cast and touched by the gorgeous music. There weren't many dry eyes in the house at the end of the show when the character Wendy sang the wistful, yearning Dream With Me surrounded by soft twinkling stars at night.

I look back at how it all began in 1997. It made me think of a line from Dream With Me that I thought beautifully described everyone involved in the recording and productions: All of us, then as now,  "dreamed the same sweet dream ".