SANTA BARBARA — Albert Ihde and Ellen Pasternack's nuptials involved much more than the union of two souls -- there was also the ritual joining together of their record collections, which ran a close second for the founding couple behind Santa Barbara Theatre. And when Pasternack first heard Ihde's original recording of Leonard Bernstein's little-known score for "Peter Pan," which debuted on Broadway in 1950, she was gobsmacked.
Advertisement
Peter. Wendy. Lenny?
Almost 60 years after its premiere, Leonard Bernstein's 'Peter Pan' gets its definitive hearing. Yes, you read it right -- Leonard Bernstein.
THEATER
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, December 14, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 56 words Type of Material: Correction
"Peter Pan": In today's Arts & Books, an article about Leonard Bernstein's "Peter Pan" misspells the last name of Garth Edwin Sunderland, music editor of the Leonard Bernstein Office, as Sutherland. Also, "Captain Hook's Soliloquy" was written for Lawrence Tibbett -- who appeared in the touring production -- not, as the article states, for Boris Karloff.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, December 21, 2008 Home Edition Sunday Calendar Part E Page 2 Calendar Desk 1 inches; 53 words Type of Material: Correction
"Peter Pan": An article last Sunday about Leonard Bernstein's "Peter Pan" misspelled the last name of Garth Edwin Sunderland, music editor of the Leonard Bernstein Office, as Sutherland. Also, "Captain Hook's Soliloquy" was written for Lawrence Tibbett -- who appeared in the touring production -- not, as the article stated, for Boris Karloff.
Advertisement
"I said to him, 'This is a lost masterpiece,' " Pasternack recalls of that moment in summer 2004. " 'Where has this been?' "
In a rehearsal room behind her, half a dozen scruffy actors are practicing the steps of the pirate dance from the show's first American revival of note, which opens Friday at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. (Bernstein's "Peter Pan" has resurfaced only sporadically since, including a production by a Midwest theater company 20 years ago, but even the composer's estate is fuzzy on the details.) The production comes amid a flurry of activity worldwide celebrating the 90th anniversary of the composer's birth, but the timing is serendipitous -- "Peter Pan's" return is the culmination of events stretching back more than half a century.
Technically not considered a musical but rather a play with music, Bernstein's version of the J.M. Barrie classic opened on April 24, 1950, with then-49-year-old Jean Arthur in the title role and Boris Karloff as Capt. Hook. Critics such as Brooks Atkinson embraced the production; the New York Times theater maven called it "a melodic, colorful and dramatic score that is not afraid to be simple in spirit."
Simple for Bernstein, that is. The remarkably versatile composer infused the score with a rich blend of influences -- sharp listeners will notice allegro snippets from Bach's "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 3 -- and complex rhythms and harmonies, which foreshadowed some of his later works, including "Candide," "West Side Story" and "Chichester Psalms."
"My guess would be that Bernstein had a lot of fun with this show," says Garth Edwin Sutherland, music editor of the Leonard Bernstein Office, which holds the rights to his works. "His music tends to be very complicated, although we don't think of it that way. Peter Pan is the ur figure of innocence -- the boy who won't grow up -- and the music has a similar quality of childishness in the best possible sense that you don't see that much in his other works, not unsophisticated but innocent and straightforward."
