| Title | : | The Ballad of John Latouche: An American Lyricist's Life and Work |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0190458291 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780190458294 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 590 |
| Publication | : | Published November 2, 2017 |
"A great American genius" in the words of Duke Ellington, Latouche initially came to wide public attention in his early twenties with his cantata for soloist and chorus, Ballad for Americans (1939), with music by Earl Robinson-a work that swept the nation during the Second World War. Other milestones in his career included the all-black musical fable, Cabin in the Sky (1940), with Vernon Duke; an interracial updating of John Gay's classic, The Beggar's Opera, as Beggar's Holiday (1946), with Duke Ellington; two acclaimed Broadway operas with Jerome Ballet Ballads (1948) and The Golden Apple (1954); one of the most enduring operas in the American canon, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), with Douglas Moore; and the operetta Candide (1956), with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs, participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated poetry, adapted plays, and much else.
Meanwhile, as one of Manhattan's most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he developed a wide range of friends in the arts, including, to name only a few, Paul and Jane Bowles (whom he introduced to each other), Yul Brynner, John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Kiesler, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams-a dazzling constellation of diverse artists working in sundry fields, all attracted to Latouche's brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support for their work.
This book draws widely on archival collections both at home and abroad, including Latouche's diaries and the papers of Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work.
The Ballad of John Latouche: An American Lyricist's Life and Work Reviews
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I have read a lot of biographies of musical theater composers, lyricists, producers, directors, and performers. And with almost all of them, I’ve come away with the wish that the author had described shows more thoroughly, letting me know what they were about, what the pitfalls of producing them were, and what critical reaction was. After reading Howard Pollack’s The Ballad of John Latouche, an American Lyricist’s Life and Work, I’ve told myself “be careful what you wish for.” I should have seen the clues that this book is not the breezy best-seller wannabes of my previous reading: it is published by Oxford University Press, its cover price is almost forty bucks, and the length approaches five hundred pages. But seeing an Amazon listing for the book, I craved to know more about this, to me, heretofore little known lyricist. And I have a great love for his opera The Ballad of Baby Doe, so I purchased the most inexpensive copy I could find. But oh how tedious the reading was. I don’t fault Pollack for being a scholar, and I praise the book because it is an invaluable resource for current students of musical theater and for future generations, to whom this remarkable man might have remained virtually unknown. But this is not an easy read to while away an afternoon. It has copious footnotes, endless quoted material that invariably has flaws that require the designation (sic.) Pollack takes each and every work that Latouche ever wrote and laboriously analyzes its history, its composition, its critical reception. Whereas the kind of bio I prefer would give the reader a few critical reactions, Pollack quotes from every reviewer who ever wrote about the work. Those bios I like usually tell us the name of a show, give a few sentence synopsis, and then go on their merry way. Pollack describes each scene, thus the synopsis can reach two to three pages. And every single person mentioned in the text is appended with birth and death dates plus a birth name if the person either used a stage name or changed his or her name after immigrating. As I said, it’s all very scholarly and not very chatty. We learn about Latouche’s life but we never truly feel like we know him intimately. We hear about his work, but this book makes it seem sterile. In short, this is book for a library shelf, not for the coffee table. I applaud Pollack for writing this, and I do see its value, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
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This is a very dense and scholarly study of the work of John Latouche. Latouche led a fascinating life with many achievements and many demons. The author's primary interest is in his subjects lyrical prowess of which he contributes an inciteful abd masterful analysis. His writing is sometimes a bit too esoteric for readers who do not understand musical analysis and criticism. The chapter of "Candide" was probably the most difficult in this respect but thus book is never less than intelligent, heartfelt and makes a good case for better recognition of this talented man.
