Richard Rodgers: A Centennial Celebration
The 10th annual Kennedy Center Gala proved to be an intergenerational celebration of the music of Richard Rodgers as the evening’s honored veteran stars shone brightly alongside younger artists. The privilege of seeing and hearing Shirley Jones, Howard Keel, and John Raitt performing Rodgers’ music in 2002 is a precious one; after all, the careers of these stars are closely tied to that of the great man through their unforgettable stage and film appearances in his musicals. How wonderful it is that a select group of performers born several decades after these worthies are talented enough to proudly share the stage with them.
Perhaps predictably, the evening’s program favored the fruits of the Rodgers & Hammerstein collaboration: only two songs with lyrics by Lorenz Hart, one with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and two with lyrics by Rodgers himself were featured. The concert was obviously intended not as an overview of the master’s oeuvre but as a series of glittering highlights, which it most certainly was. Titled Richard Rodgers: A Centennial Celebration, the performance was a brilliant showcase for the National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. Throughout, these forces played with astonishing beauty even if, at times, there was a slight sense of under-rehearsal. (The orchestra had been tackling Mahler’s Fifth in previous days and, undoubtedly, had to focus most of their attention on that monumental.)
The concert began with a reading of the South Pacific overture that was truly breathtaking. Purists may have objected that this was not the overture to the Broadway show but the main title sequence of the film version–a lush, majestic arrangement of the song “Bali H’ai” rather than a potpourri of tunes. If there were any such quibbles, they were drowned out in the tremendous wash of gorgeous orchestral sound.
How do you follow an opening like that? With Audra McDonald, no less, singing “I Have Confidence” from the movie version of The Sound of Music. This tour-de-force led to McDonald’s haunting, lyrical duet with bass Samuel Ramey on “The Sweetest Sounds” from No Strings. Next up was the full “Carousel Waltz,” one of Rodgers’ most enduring compositions–and, believe me, you haven’t really heard it till you’ve heard it played live by an orchestra of 100-or-so pieces.
Howard Keel–star of myriad M-G-M film musicals, not to mention TV’s Dallas–wowed the audience with a charming, energetic, very well sung medley from Oklahoma! It’s hard to believe that Keel played Curly in the original London production of the show, way back in nineteen-forty-something. His glorious display of undimmed professionalism hardly prepared us for the train wreck that followed when Rita Moreno–Tuptim in the movie version of R&H’s The King and I–arrived on stage. Moreno’s rendition of “This Nearly Was Mine” from South Pacific was bad enough: She messed up a key lyric (it’s “One love to be living for,” Rita!) and added insult to injury by distorting the song’s lovely melody through questionable phrasing and dynamics. But there was worse to come. Moreno then attempted to sing Rodgers & Sondheim’s “Do I Hear a Waltz?” even though she clearly didn’t know the correct note values or the correct lyrics of the piece. The Rodgers gala is set to be televised by PBS this summer, but don’t be surprised if Moreno’s segment is edited out.
Graciously cleaning up after this mess was the ageless John Raitt, offering a somewhat abbreviated version of the lengthy and difficult “Soliloquy” from Carousel some 57 years after he created the role of Billy Bigelow in the original Broadway production of that show. Though it would be folly to claim that Raitt’s voice is undiminished by the passage of so many years, there were moments when he truly sounded more or less like he does on the show’s 1945 cast album. He was especially persuasive in the “My Little Girl” section of the song and in his duet with Shirley Jones on another Carousel classic, “If I Loved You.” Jones remarked to the audience that this was her first time actually performing with her old friend Raitt, and she really seemed to enjoy herself, demonstrating here and in her solo medley of “Out of My Dreams” and “People Will Say We’re in Love” from Oklahoma! that Mrs. Partridge still has some set of pipes. (Jones, of course, co-starred in the films Oklahoma! and Carousel with Gordon Mac Rae).
A Symphonic Scenario from the television documentary Victory at Sea–including the theme that Rodgers later used for the song “No Other Love” in the stage musical Me and Juliet–led to Kristin Chenoweth’s adorable take on Rodgers & Hart’s “You Took Advantage of Me” (for some reason, I always forget that they wrote this song) and her heartfelt rendition of the same team’s “My Funny Valentine,” the latter accompanied by the great Joshua Bell (Chenoweth’s beau) on violin and Lee Musiker on piano.
The final section of the concert was lent an operatic tinge by soprano Sylvia McNair’s delightful medley from the The King and I and Ramey’s sonorous delivery of one of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most famous and beautiful love songs, “Some Enchanted Evening.” This was followed by a full company rendition of “Oklahoma!” that thrillingly showcased The Washington Chorus, whose members had distinguished themselves at several points earlier in the evening.
