My Fair Lady

M U S I C A L N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O

My Fair Lady : Almost – But Not Quite – a Love Story By Jay Gummert

CECIL BEATON COLLECION, SOTHEBY, BELGRAVIA

CHAPPELL MUSIC

Julie Andrews portrayed Eliza Doolittle opposite Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins in the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady , 1956.

Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner

A lan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady has thrilled audiences around the world since its 1956 premiere. Its memorable songs – “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “The Rain in Spain,” and many more – have made their way into the lives of millions, capturing hearts of all ages. The evolution of this masterpiece, while immensely challenging to its creative team, was wildly successful and rewarding for them all – a musical that truly illuminated and enhanced one of the most captivating plays and films in the English language. Lerner and Loewe were already successful on Broadway ( Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon ) by 1952, when the idea of a musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion was suggested to them. The instigator, film producer-director Gabriel Pascal, had previously fashioned brilliant film adaptations of four Shaw plays – Pygmalion, Major Barbara , Caesar and Cleopatra, and Androcles and the Lion. At first the task proposed by Pascal seemed too

daunting (Rodgers and Hammerstein had previously made the attempt and given up); after all, how could anyone create a great contemporary musical without a love story? Lerner and Loewe abandoned the project, but after Pascal’s fruitless pursuit of Noël Coward and Cole Porter – two other musical-theater greats – they began again, starting work shortly after Pascal’s death in mid-1954. With the ever-present problem of an unromantic plot, the duo finally achieved a breakthrough in realizing that, as Lerner later explained, they “could do Pygmalion simply by doing Pygmalion .” The foundation for their work would be the superb screenplay written by Shaw himself for Pascal’s 1938 film. This meant a copious amount of dialogue, but Lerner insisted on retaining as much Shaw as possible. Shaw’s characters were certainly strong and dynamic enough to stand on their own; Lerner and Loewe’s great challenge was to create transitions that would compel them to express themselves through song.

George Bernard Shaw at the time of Pygmalion .

32 | April - May, 2017