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ON THE RECORD: A Dandy Fine and Dandy and Song of Norway
By Steven Suskin
30 May 2004
SONG OF NORWAY [Decca Broadway B00002471]
Song of Norway was not the last of the big old-time operettas, exactly; but by 1944, when it opened at the Imperial, it was already an out dated throwback to the Student Prince era of a generation before. Which might have helped account for Song of Norway's successful, 860-performance run, making it Broadway's longest-running traditional operetta ever. Audiences were war-weary and clearly not averse to the good old days; add in that Norway the real country, not the musical comedy equivalent was just then waging an heroic battle against the forces of evil. All of this combined to make Norway a healthy hit, running nearly twice as long as that season's nervy On the Town.
Robert Wright (born 1914) and George "Chet" Forrest (1915-1999) met in high school in Florida, joined forces in 1935 and headed to Hollywood. They found early success writing new songs based on old music by folks like Tchaikowsky for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's 1937 version of Maytime. They did the same for The Firefly, giving the then still-living Rudolf Friml a new song hit, "The Donkey Serenade."
Edwin Lester, who founded the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1938, determined to move into original musicals (as opposed to revivals of old hits). Deciding to produce a new operetta from scratch, he signed Hollywood's Wright and Forrest to tackle Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). Thus, Song of Norway. The show opened in Los Angeles in June 1944, and within ten weeks had transferred to Broadway.
Song of Norway was a big hit for Wright and Forrest, but it in some ways proved detrimental to their career. Their next musical, the Milton Berle vehicle Spring in Brazil, with music dreamed up solely by themselves, tanked in Chicago. This turn of events slotted them, for better or worse, as song-adaptors borrowing melodies from their betters. But giving credit, at least. Wright and Forrest had failures working with (or against?) the likes of Victor Herbert, Franz Lehar and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Next came Alexander Borodin and his Kismet, another hit import from Ed Lester's West Coast operation. This costume operetta, and its two Hit Parade hits "Stranger in Paradise" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," apparently convinced the boys to stop with the classics already. But The Carefree Heart, from a comedy by Moliθre, collapsed in Cleveland; At the Grand, from Vicki Baum's soap opera-of-a-novel, folded in Frisco; and Kean, spearheaded by their Kismet star Alfred Drake, bombed at the Broadway.
Back to the semi-classics for Anya, a 1965 adaptation of Anastasia with themes from Sergei Rachmaninoff. Two weeks at the Ziegfeld, and that seemed to be the end of Wright and Forrest on Broadway. A Song for Cyrano, a Jose Ferrer-helmed adaptation of guess what, had a summer stock tryout in 1973, but that was just about it. Until At the Grand was unaccountably disembalmed after 31 years and thanks to a Boston transfusion of six songs from Maury Yeston finally made it to town as Grand Hotel.
I've never had all that much enthusiasm for the work of Wright and Forrest. Kismet I find pleasurable, in a somewhat vulgar way. The boys attempted to transplant it to Timbuktu in 1978, stripping the show of its original charms. Timbuktu is long forgotten, while current events have put Kismet "A Musical Arabian Night" in limbo just now. ("Baghdad! Don't underestimate Baghdad!" goes one of the songs.") Song of Norway can be seen as Kismet without the sense of humor. For my money, Anya works the best. Musically, that is, though certainly not on stage. As for the Norway lyrics, they are of the "Dear / Let me hold you near / While we treasure / Every measure" variety.
The orchestrations, by Lester's in-house music man Arthur Kay, are predictably overripe. Kay, who also conducted, did Kismet as well; he is not, under any circumstances, to be confused with orchestrator Hershy Kay, of Candide, 110 in the Shade and On the Twentieth Century. (There is peripheral evidence that Don Walker might have scored two of the most impressive numbers his account book shows that he put in bills for "Freddy and His Fiddle" and "Strange Music" but this bears further investigation.)
Top-billed Irra Petina of Magdalena, Anya and, most memorably, Leonard Bernstein's Candide is missing in action, replaced by Decca artist Kitty Carlisle (back before she got Hart). Lawrence Brooks and Helena Bliss play the romantic leads, with Robert Shafer later of Damn Yankees giving his all as Grieg's best friend.
The CD of Song of Norway is not without interest, naturally. This was Decca's second big-selling original cast album, following the prior year's Oklahoma! The liner notes helpfully tell us that this recording has already been given seven different releases and that was prior to the advent of the CD! (The initial pressing of this CD contains an error one track is included twice, another missing that they are in the process of fixing.) The remastered Song of Norway certainly sounds far better than any versions that have come before, although sonic fiddling can't mask the fact that the orchestra in the opening moments of the album seems to be sight reading by candlelight on a stormy night.
Steven Suskin, author of the forthcoming "A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork," the "Broadway Yearbook" series, "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached by e-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com.
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