Leonard Bernstein: A Centennial Celebration, offering free screenings of Leonard Bernstein telecasts closes out its final installment August 26 at the Paley Center in New York and Los Angeles.
The Sunday screenings, which have been presented throughout the month of August, included many rarities that are not available commercially, including Bernstein’s TV conducting debut: the November 1952 live NBC Opera telecast of the jazzy opera-musical theatre hybrid Trouble in Tahiti.
The final day of Leonard Bernstein: A Centennial Celebration features the following screenings:
12:15 PM Bernstein at 60: An Appreciation: Live from Wolf Trap (1978)
This live celebration of Bernstein’s 60th birthday from Wolf Trap Farm Park in Virginia, hosted for television by Joel Grey, includes reminiscences from William Schuman, Lauren Bacall, Jerome Robbins, Lillian Hellman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and Humphrey Burton. Excerpts from Bernstein's symphonic works are offered. John Mauceri conducts selections from Bernstein’s On the Town (performed by Daniel Fortus, Lee Roy Reams, Treat Williams, Lenora Nemetz, and Laurence Guittard); Wonderful Town (performed by Comden, Green, and Phyllis Newman); West Side Story (performed by Stephen Bogardus and Josie de Guzman); Candide (performed by Gianna Rolandi, De Guzman, and Bogardus); and Mass; and Bernstein conducts the National Symphony Orchestra with pianist Andre Previn, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and violinist Yehudi Menuhin in the first movement of Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C Major, Opus 56. (PBS, 3 hrs.)
3:15 PM Great Performances: Bernstein Conducts West Side Story (1985)
In a recording session, Bernstein conducts his entire score for the landmark 1957 musical West Side Story (with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim), featuring opera singers Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos, José Carreras, and Kurt Ollmann in the principal roles. At a press conference, Bernstein discusses the musical's enduring vitality, and in interviews interspersed throughout, the four principal performers discuss the international appeal of West Side Storyand the significance that the musical had for them in their youth. (PBS, 1 hr. 30 mins.)
For more information visit paleycenter.org.
