Blue Monday (opera)
Encyclopedia
Blue Monday was the original name of a one-act "jazz opera
" by George Gershwin
, renamed 135th Street during a later production. The English
libretto
was written by Buddy DeSylva. Though a short piece, with a running time of between twenty and thirty minutes, Blue Monday is often considered the blueprint to many of Gershwin's later works, and is often considered to be the "first piece of symphonic
jazz
" in that it was the first significant attempt to fuse forms of classical music such as opera with American popular music
, with the opera largely influenced by Jazz
and the African-American culture of Harlem
.
As in Gershwin's later opera Porgy and Bess
, all the singing roles are African-American characters. Unlike Porgy and Bess, however, the original production of Blue Monday was performed by white singers in blackface
, since, according to conductor
Erich Kunzel
, "there were no black people on Broadway during that period."
After a brief overture
, the gambler Joe appears in front of the curtain as a Prologue
, in a reference to the character Tonio's opening aria
in Pagliacci
. Like that number, which explained the serious nature of Leoncavallo's
opera as if it were an actual event, Joe tells his audience that just like "the white man's opera", this "colored [Harlem] tragedy enacted in operatic style" focuses on primal human emotions such as love
, hate, passion and jealousy
, and that the moral of the story is that tragic results come from when a women's intuition
goes wrong (Joe: "Ladies and gentlemen!").
As the curtain rises on a café with a bar
, gambling
room and dance floor, café owner Mike berates his worker Sam for his laziness and commands him to get to work. As Sam sweeps the floor, he relates that he resents "Blue Monday
" because he always loses at dice gambling and it is the day when people die, and concludes that there is no use working on Mondays (Sam: "Blue Monday Blues"). The pianist
Sweetpea arrives and plays for a while until the arrogant singer Tom comes in and knocks her out of the way, claiming that the only reason the café is still in business is his singing. Joe's sweetheart Vi enters, asking if anyone has seen her "lovin' man" Joe, for which she is supposed to meet for a date (Vi: "Has Anyone Seen My Joe?").
When Mike goes to the backroom to ask if anyone has seen Joe, Tom attempts to seduce
and woo Vi. When Tom tells her that he loves her and asks what she sees in the gambler Joe, Vi angrily that retorts that even if he gambles, Joe is a man and unique. Tom continues to try to persuade Vi to leave Joe for him and attempts to kiss her, when Vi threatens him with a revolver
that Joe had given her. Mike returns with the news that no one has seen Joe, and Vi leaves. Mike again calls Sam and scolds him for being lazy, and as Sam again sweeps the floor he sings a reprise the song "Blue Monday" (Sam: "Monday's the day that all the earthquakes quiver"). This time Sam more directly foreshadows the event to come, as he states that "Monday's a day full of sad, sad news /... That's when a gal will pull a trigger, / A gal will pull a trigger".
Joe enters the café and Tom hides behind the piano to eavesdrop on his conversation with Mike. After Mike tells Joe that Vi has been looking for him and that he has heard that Joe won a large deal of money in a crap game
, Joe tells him that he is going to use the money to travel to the South
the next morning to visit his mother, whom he hadn't seen in years and to whom he has recently sent a telegram (Joe: "I'll tell the world I did"). Joe says that he can not tell Vi that he is going, and when asked why by Mike he says that she gets jealous and angry for irrational reasons. He then relates how he yearns to see his mother and return home (Joe: "I'm Gonna See My Mother").
Joe goes upstairs to meet Vi, and slowly the night's guests and customers arrive. After a dance, Vi tells him that she loves only him and although she is a jealous woman, if he remains true to her then she will be his (Vi: I love but you, my Joe, my Joe"). When Joe leaves to wait for a telegram from his mother, Tom tells Vi that he overheard Joe's conversation and that the telegram is from another woman. Vi initially refuses to believe him, but when Sweetpea arrives with Joe's telegram, Vi accuses Joe of infidelity and demands to see the telegram. Joe rebukes her by pushing her away, and when he opens the envelope Vi shoots him with the revolver from her handbag.
Vi reads the letter, which says that there is no need for Joe to come because his mother had been dead for three years. When she realizes what she has done, she sinks to the floor and begs Joe for forgiveness, which she receives. As Joe dies, he sings that he is finally going to see his mother in heaven. (Joe: "I'm Gonna See My Mother").
, a former song-plugger
for a music publishing firm on Tin Pan Alley
, allowed him to write songs for three Broadway
shows and then write complete scores for four (although because every one of his previous shows was a revue
, Gershwin had basically no dramatic experience). Two of Gershwin's most successful works at this time were the scores to the 1920 and 1921 productions of George White's Scandals
, a popular annual revue. Paul Whiteman
, the music director
and conductor
of the Scandals of 1922
(with his Orchestra in the pit), which Gershwin was again hired for, had previously worked with him when the Paul Whiteman Orchestra recorded the latter's song "South Sea Island" in 1921.
Gershwin's lyricist Buddy DeSylva originally conceived a plan for writing a "jazz opera" set in Harlem and based on the Italian language
verismo
opera Pagliacci
with Gershwin in the early 1920s, and Whiteman, who had built much of his reputation on such experimental fusions of different musical and dramatic genres, persuaded producer
George White to include it in the 1922 Scandals. White was initially enthusiastic about an idea of a black "opera" because "A recent Broadway success was Shuffle Along
, a show with an all-black cast—its words and music by the black creative team of Noble Sissle
and Eubie Blake
... White seems to have imagined that a black-oriented segment in the new edition of his revue would capitalize on Shuffle Along's appeal." However, after considering his decision, White realized that a thirty-minute operatic tragedy, or "one act vaudeville opera", as Gershwin called it, would disrupt the flow of his review, and promptly reconsidered before Gershwin and DeSylva had begun writing. The latter two, however, were still the composer and lyricist of the rest of the revue, as it would include the later-famous song "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise."
Three weeks before the opening of the show, White found that he was in need of a longer program and reverted to allowing the (unwritten) opera to be included in the show. Gershwin and DeSylva wrote the work in five days and five nights, and soon after completion it was orchestrated by Will Vodery
, a very talented but relatively unknown African-American composer who had befriended Gershwin.
The premiere performance of Blue Monday was at the four Scandal's tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut
, and it was received there very warmly and enthusiastically. Gershwin later wrote that what he referred to as his "composer's stomach", ailments which he would have for the rest of his life, originated in his nervousness on the opening night of Blue Monday. A few days after, it opened (and closed) on Broadway
at the Globe Theatre
on August 28, 1922. The opera itself did not gain a lot of acceptance because of its tragic ending, and was removed from the Scandals after only one performance.
Some critics saw the work as worse than just inappropriate for the Scandals, as Charles Darnton's review in the New York World
called it "the most dismal, stupid, and incredible blackface
sketch that has probably ever been perpetrated. In it a dusky soprano finally killed her gambling man. She should have shot all her associates the moment they appeared and then turned the pistol on herself." According to Reed University Professor of Music David Schiff, "With the appearance of black musicals like Shuffle Along
and the emergence of black stars such as Paul Robeson
and Ethel Waters
, the minstrel
convention of blackface
, which survived in the vastly popular performances of Al Jolson
and Eddie Cantor
, had become an embarrassment - at least to some critics."
However, "Another critic... said it was a genuine human plot of American life and foreshadowed things to come from Gershwin," and another wrote that "This opera will be imitated in a hundred years." Most importantly, a third critic was relieved that "Here at last, is a genuinely human plot of American life, set to music in the American vein, using jazz only at the right moments, the Blues, and above all, a new and free ragtime
time recitative
. In it we see the first gleam of a new American musical art." Many biographers and musicologists would see such an assessment as a prophetic prediction of the accomplishment that Gershwin would make thirteen years later with Porgy and Bess
.
Blue Monday was one of Gershwin's premature works and lacks the musical and dramatic sophistication of his later musicals and Porgy and Bess, but jazz
conductor Paul Whiteman
, who conducted the original performance of the piece in 1922, was so impressed by it that he asked Gershwin to compose a symphonic jazz piece for Whiteman to conduct at a concert Whiteman was planning. The resulting piece, "Rhapsody in Blue
," became Gershwin's most famous composition.
Arts consultant Jeffrey James claims that Blue Monday is the "genesis of the Rhapsody", and "the missing link in Gershwin's evolution into the Rhapsody in Blue" as well as a source to his Preludes
, Piano Concerto
and Porgy and Bess
.
After its disastrous flop on Broadway, Blue Monday was subsequently renamed 135th Street when Ferde Grofé
re-orchestrated it in 1925, with a concert performance at Carnegie Hall
on December 29. In an unusually daring move for 1950's television, it was presented in that medium in 1953, as part of the famous anthology, Omnibus
, under the title 135th Street. This production featured black singers, not white singers in blackface. Blue Monday is occasionally, though sparingly, revived both inside and outside of the United States, including a 1970 New York revival and recent productions in Adelaide, Australia
, Livorno, Italy
, Arlington, Virginia and Linz, Austria
. A vocal score with a new orchestration by George Bassman
was published in 1993. This version was recorded and released on CD that year.
An abbreviated version of Blue Monday, performed in blackface, was included in the 1945 film biography of Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
. The sequence was a fictionalized, but basically true re-creation of the work's opening performance. Bandleader Paul Whiteman
appeared as himself.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
" by George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, renamed 135th Street during a later production. The English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
was written by Buddy DeSylva. Though a short piece, with a running time of between twenty and thirty minutes, Blue Monday is often considered the blueprint to many of Gershwin's later works, and is often considered to be the "first piece of symphonic
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
" in that it was the first significant attempt to fuse forms of classical music such as opera with American popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, with the opera largely influenced by Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and the African-American culture of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
.
Characters
- Roles
- Joe, a gambler, tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
- Vi, his sweetheart, lyric sopranoSopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
- Tom, café entertainer and singer, baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
- Mike, café proprietor and manager, bass
- Sam, café worker and custodian, baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
- Sweetpea, café pianist
- Joe, a gambler, tenor
- Chorus
- Guests
As in Gershwin's later opera Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
, all the singing roles are African-American characters. Unlike Porgy and Bess, however, the original production of Blue Monday was performed by white singers in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
, since, according to conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
Erich Kunzel
Erich Kunzel
Erich Kunzel, Jr. was an American orchestra conductor. Called the "Prince of Pops" by the Chicago Tribune, he performed with a number of leading pops and symphony orchestras, especially the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra , which he led for over 44 years.-Early life and career:Kunzel was born to...
, "there were no black people on Broadway during that period."
Synopsis
- Setting: A basement caféCoffeehouseA coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
near the intersection of 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in HarlemHarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. - Time: An evening during the Jazz AgeJazz AgeThe Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
, beginning at around 9:30 P.M.
After a brief overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, the gambler Joe appears in front of the curtain as a Prologue
Prologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
, in a reference to the character Tonio's opening aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
in Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
. Like that number, which explained the serious nature of Leoncavallo's
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
opera as if it were an actual event, Joe tells his audience that just like "the white man's opera", this "colored [Harlem] tragedy enacted in operatic style" focuses on primal human emotions such as love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
, hate, passion and jealousy
Jealousy
Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
, and that the moral of the story is that tragic results come from when a women's intuition
Intuition (knowledge)
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
goes wrong (Joe: "Ladies and gentlemen!").
As the curtain rises on a café with a bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
, gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
room and dance floor, café owner Mike berates his worker Sam for his laziness and commands him to get to work. As Sam sweeps the floor, he relates that he resents "Blue Monday
Blue Monday (date)
Blue Monday is a name given to a date stated, as part of a publicity campaign by Sky Travel, to be the most depressing day of the year.This date was published in a press release under the name of Cliff Arnall, at the time a tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, a Further Education centre...
" because he always loses at dice gambling and it is the day when people die, and concludes that there is no use working on Mondays (Sam: "Blue Monday Blues"). The pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
Sweetpea arrives and plays for a while until the arrogant singer Tom comes in and knocks her out of the way, claiming that the only reason the café is still in business is his singing. Joe's sweetheart Vi enters, asking if anyone has seen her "lovin' man" Joe, for which she is supposed to meet for a date (Vi: "Has Anyone Seen My Joe?").
When Mike goes to the backroom to ask if anyone has seen Joe, Tom attempts to seduce
Seduction
In social science, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person to engage. The word seduction stems from Latin and means literally "to lead astray". As a result, the term may have a positive or negative connotation...
and woo Vi. When Tom tells her that he loves her and asks what she sees in the gambler Joe, Vi angrily that retorts that even if he gambles, Joe is a man and unique. Tom continues to try to persuade Vi to leave Joe for him and attempts to kiss her, when Vi threatens him with a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
that Joe had given her. Mike returns with the news that no one has seen Joe, and Vi leaves. Mike again calls Sam and scolds him for being lazy, and as Sam again sweeps the floor he sings a reprise the song "Blue Monday" (Sam: "Monday's the day that all the earthquakes quiver"). This time Sam more directly foreshadows the event to come, as he states that "Monday's a day full of sad, sad news /... That's when a gal will pull a trigger, / A gal will pull a trigger".
Joe enters the café and Tom hides behind the piano to eavesdrop on his conversation with Mike. After Mike tells Joe that Vi has been looking for him and that he has heard that Joe won a large deal of money in a crap game
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
, Joe tells him that he is going to use the money to travel to the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
the next morning to visit his mother, whom he hadn't seen in years and to whom he has recently sent a telegram (Joe: "I'll tell the world I did"). Joe says that he can not tell Vi that he is going, and when asked why by Mike he says that she gets jealous and angry for irrational reasons. He then relates how he yearns to see his mother and return home (Joe: "I'm Gonna See My Mother").
Joe goes upstairs to meet Vi, and slowly the night's guests and customers arrive. After a dance, Vi tells him that she loves only him and although she is a jealous woman, if he remains true to her then she will be his (Vi: I love but you, my Joe, my Joe"). When Joe leaves to wait for a telegram from his mother, Tom tells Vi that he overheard Joe's conversation and that the telegram is from another woman. Vi initially refuses to believe him, but when Sweetpea arrives with Joe's telegram, Vi accuses Joe of infidelity and demands to see the telegram. Joe rebukes her by pushing her away, and when he opens the envelope Vi shoots him with the revolver from her handbag.
Vi reads the letter, which says that there is no need for Joe to come because his mother had been dead for three years. When she realizes what she has done, she sinks to the floor and begs Joe for forgiveness, which she receives. As Joe dies, he sings that he is finally going to see his mother in heaven. (Joe: "I'm Gonna See My Mother").
Performance History, Reception and Legacy
By 1922, the improvisational and melodic talent of George GershwinGeorge Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, a former song-plugger
Song-plugger
A song-plugger was a piano player employed by music stores in the early 20th century to promote and help sell new sheet music, which is how hits were advertised before quality recordings were widely available. Typically, the pianist sat on the mezzanine level of a store and played whatever music...
for a music publishing firm on Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
, allowed him to write songs for three Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
shows and then write complete scores for four (although because every one of his previous shows was a revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
, Gershwin had basically no dramatic experience). Two of Gershwin's most successful works at this time were the scores to the 1920 and 1921 productions of George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, ...
, a popular annual revue. Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
, the music director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...
and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
of the Scandals of 1922
George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, ...
(with his Orchestra in the pit), which Gershwin was again hired for, had previously worked with him when the Paul Whiteman Orchestra recorded the latter's song "South Sea Island" in 1921.
Gershwin's lyricist Buddy DeSylva originally conceived a plan for writing a "jazz opera" set in Harlem and based on the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
opera Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
with Gershwin in the early 1920s, and Whiteman, who had built much of his reputation on such experimental fusions of different musical and dramatic genres, persuaded producer
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
George White to include it in the 1922 Scandals. White was initially enthusiastic about an idea of a black "opera" because "A recent Broadway success was Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along is the first major successful African American musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on Broadway in 1921.-Plot:...
, a show with an all-black cast—its words and music by the black creative team of Noble Sissle
Noble Sissle
Noble Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright.-Early life:...
and Eubie Blake
Eubie Blake
James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...
... White seems to have imagined that a black-oriented segment in the new edition of his revue would capitalize on Shuffle Along's appeal." However, after considering his decision, White realized that a thirty-minute operatic tragedy, or "one act vaudeville opera", as Gershwin called it, would disrupt the flow of his review, and promptly reconsidered before Gershwin and DeSylva had begun writing. The latter two, however, were still the composer and lyricist of the rest of the revue, as it would include the later-famous song "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise."
Three weeks before the opening of the show, White found that he was in need of a longer program and reverted to allowing the (unwritten) opera to be included in the show. Gershwin and DeSylva wrote the work in five days and five nights, and soon after completion it was orchestrated by Will Vodery
Will Vodery
Will Vodery was an African-American composer, conductor, orchestrator, and arranger, and one of the few black Americans of his time to make a name for himself as a composer on Broadway, working largely for Florenz Ziegfeld....
, a very talented but relatively unknown African-American composer who had befriended Gershwin.
The premiere performance of Blue Monday was at the four Scandal's tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, and it was received there very warmly and enthusiastically. Gershwin later wrote that what he referred to as his "composer's stomach", ailments which he would have for the rest of his life, originated in his nervousness on the opening night of Blue Monday. A few days after, it opened (and closed) on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
at the Globe Theatre
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 205 West 46th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, it was built by producer Charles Dillingham and opened as the Globe Theatre, in honor of London's Shakespearean playhouse, on...
on August 28, 1922. The opera itself did not gain a lot of acceptance because of its tragic ending, and was removed from the Scandals after only one performance.
Some critics saw the work as worse than just inappropriate for the Scandals, as Charles Darnton's review in the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
called it "the most dismal, stupid, and incredible blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
sketch that has probably ever been perpetrated. In it a dusky soprano finally killed her gambling man. She should have shot all her associates the moment they appeared and then turned the pistol on herself." According to Reed University Professor of Music David Schiff, "With the appearance of black musicals like Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along is the first major successful African American musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on Broadway in 1921.-Plot:...
and the emergence of black stars such as Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
and Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
, the minstrel
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
convention of blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
, which survived in the vastly popular performances of Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
and Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
, had become an embarrassment - at least to some critics."
However, "Another critic... said it was a genuine human plot of American life and foreshadowed things to come from Gershwin," and another wrote that "This opera will be imitated in a hundred years." Most importantly, a third critic was relieved that "Here at last, is a genuinely human plot of American life, set to music in the American vein, using jazz only at the right moments, the Blues, and above all, a new and free ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
time recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
. In it we see the first gleam of a new American musical art." Many biographers and musicologists would see such an assessment as a prophetic prediction of the accomplishment that Gershwin would make thirteen years later with Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
.
Blue Monday was one of Gershwin's premature works and lacks the musical and dramatic sophistication of his later musicals and Porgy and Bess, but jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
conductor Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
, who conducted the original performance of the piece in 1922, was so impressed by it that he asked Gershwin to compose a symphonic jazz piece for Whiteman to conduct at a concert Whiteman was planning. The resulting piece, "Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
," became Gershwin's most famous composition.
Arts consultant Jeffrey James claims that Blue Monday is the "genesis of the Rhapsody", and "the missing link in Gershwin's evolution into the Rhapsody in Blue" as well as a source to his Preludes
Three Preludes
Three Preludes are short piano pieces by George Gershwin and were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York in 1926. Each prelude is a well known example of early 20th century American classical music, as influenced by jazz....
, Piano Concerto
Concerto in F (Gershwin)
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than the earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue...
and Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
.
After its disastrous flop on Broadway, Blue Monday was subsequently renamed 135th Street when Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
re-orchestrated it in 1925, with a concert performance at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
on December 29. In an unusually daring move for 1950's television, it was presented in that medium in 1953, as part of the famous anthology, Omnibus
Omnibus (US TV series)
Omnibus is an American, commercially sponsored, educational television series.-History:Broadcast live primarily on Sunday afternoons at 4:00pm Eastern time, from November 9, 1952 until 1961. Omnibus originally aired on CBS, and later on Sunday evenings on ABC. The program finally moved to NBC in...
, under the title 135th Street. This production featured black singers, not white singers in blackface. Blue Monday is occasionally, though sparingly, revived both inside and outside of the United States, including a 1970 New York revival and recent productions in Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Livorno, Italy
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
, Arlington, Virginia and Linz, Austria
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
. A vocal score with a new orchestration by George Bassman
George Bassman
George Bassman was an American composer and arranger.-Biography:Born in New York to a Russian Jewish émigré couple, Bassman was later raised in Boston and began studying music at the Boston Conservatory while still a boy....
was published in 1993. This version was recorded and released on CD that year.
An abbreviated version of Blue Monday, performed in blackface, was included in the 1945 film biography of Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue (film)
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1945 fictionalized screen biography of the American composer and musician George Gershwin . Starring Robert Alda as Gershwin, the film features a few of Gershwin's acquaintances playing themselves...
. The sequence was a fictionalized, but basically true re-creation of the work's opening performance. Bandleader Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
appeared as himself.
External links
- Libretto
- Entry at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Entry at Operabase
- Work Information