OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II

In the 100 year history of the American musical, two works stand above all others in their development of the artform: SHOW BOAT and OKLAHOMA! The author of both was Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960). Born into a theatrical dynasty headed by his grandfather and namesake, Hammerstein was determined to work in the theatre, a course he pursued despite earning a law degree from Columbia University. He began his stage career as a playwright, soon turning to librettos and lyrics written for some of the greatest composers of his day. His innovations breathed new life into the moribund artform of operetta with such classics as ROSE-MARIE (music by Rudolf Friml), THE DESERT SONG (Sigmund Romberg), THE NEW MOON (Romberg) and SONG OF THE FLAME (George Gershwin.) Hammerstein and Jerome Kern wrote eight musicals together, including SWEET ADELINE, MUSIC IN THE AIR and their masterpiece, SHOWBOAT. His last musical before embarking on an exclusive partnership with Richard Rodgers was CARMEN JONES, an all-black revision of Bizet's tragic opera. In 1943, Hammerstein, pioneer in the field of operetta, joined forces with Richard Rodgers who had, for the previous twenty-five years, taken great strides in the field of musical comedy with his longtime partner, Lorenz Hart. The first Rodgers & Hammerstein collaboration, OKLAHOMA!, merged the two styles into a completely new genre -- the musical play -- and simultaneously launched the most successful partnership in the American musical theatre. Over the next seventeen years Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote nine Broadway musicals: CAROUSEL, ALLEGRO, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I, ME AND JULIET, PIPE DREAM, FLOWER DRUM SONG and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. They also wrote a movie musical (STATE FAIR) and one for television (CINDERELLA). Collectively their works earned 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and two Grammy Awards. On August 23, 1960, Oscar Hammerstein II died at his farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. THE SOUND OF MUSIC had been his last work for the theatre; "Edelweiss" was the last lyric he wrote

RICHARD RODGERS

Richard Rodgers (1902-79) began his professional career with lyricist Lorenz Hart. Among their greatest musicals: ON YOUR TOES, BABES IN ARMS, THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE, and PAL JOEY. In 1942, Rodgers joined forces with lyricist and author Oscar Hammerstein II; their 17-year-partnership, the most successful in Broadway history, yielded OKLAHOMA!, CAROUSEL, the movie musical STATE FAIR, ALLEGRO, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I, ME AND JULIET, PIPE DREAM, the TV musical CINDERELLA, FLOWER DRUM SONG and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Following Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the Broadway stage. His first solo entry, NO STRINGS, earned him two Tony Awards for music and lyrics, and was followed by DO I HEAR A WALTZ? (lyrics by Stephen Sondheim), TWO BY TWO (lyrics by Martin Charnin), REX (lyrics by Sheldon Harnick) and I REMEMBER MAMA (lyrics by Martin Charnin and Raymond Jessel).

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

Gioachino Rossini is one of opera's most intriguing figures. He wrote thirty-nine operas in nineteen years, produced from age 18 to 37 His father was the town trumpeter and his mother was a singer. As a boy, Gioacchino played the harpsichord, violin, and piano, and sang in the children's chorus of the opera. Rossini was one of the most famous composers of his day. He was also one of the most prolific - he composed an average of two operas each year of his career. His operas were very popular, much like Broadway shows from hit composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber are today. Two of his operas are still performed frequently today: La Cenerentola and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). Barber features the famous baritone aria in which the barber, Figaro, sings about how he is so important around town that all day long he hears people calling "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!" The spirited overture of his final opera, the magnificent William Tell, is familiar worldwide. Rossini wrote in a style used by most opera composers of his day called bel canto. Rossini was a master of this style and made several important innovations drawing on Mozart's legacy and that helped pave the way for the great opera composers of the late 19th-century, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Singers of bel canto operas would improvise lots of fast notes, trills, and runs (coloratura singing) to show off their singing technique. Rossini helped establish the composer as more powerful than singers by writing out the coloratura passages himself and insisting that singers do them just as they were written. But even Rossini could not completely control his artists. A famous soprano of the day, Adelina Patti, once performed an aria from Rossini's The Barber of Seville for the composer. "And how do you Like the aria, Maestro?" she asked. "A charming tune," replied Rossini dryly, "I wonder who wrote it?" Rossini had a gift for writing beautiful melodies, but he was notoriously lazy. He procrastinated writing music until the very last moment and often "borrowed" music from his other operas. The overture to Barber of Seville, for instance, had been previously attached to three different operas. He also worked fast: Barber was written in an incredible thirteen days. In 1829, at the age of 37 and the height of his popularity, Rossini retired from composing. His success had made him a wealthy man, and a life of leisure greatly appealed to him. He also took a dim view of the new directions in which opera was headed. For the remaining 39 years of his life, he turned his home in Paris into one of the most glittering salons in Europe and wrote music only for his own enjoyment. He was still so famous and respected at his death that thousands paid tribute.

JULES MASSENET

Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet was a French composer. He is best known for his operas, which were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century; they afterwards fell into oblivion for the most part, but have undergone periodic revivals since the mid-1970's.

Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the French département of the Loire. When he was eleven his family moved to Paris so that he could study at the Conservatoire there. In 1862 he won a Grand Prix de Rome and spent three years in Rome. His first opera was a one-act production at the at Opéra-Comique in 1867, but it was his dramatic oratorio Marie-Magdeleine that won him the praise of the likes of Tchaikovsky and Gounod.

Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878 he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included Gustave Charpentier, Reynaldo Hahn and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. Notable later operas were Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, produced in 1902, and Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.

In addition to his operas, he also composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the Méditation religieuse from Thaïs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and Élégie for solo piano. The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students.