Lehman Engel
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer and conductor of Broadway musicals, television and film.
Work in theatre, television and films
Engel worked in a variety of positions on television specials. He was composer and conductor of the music for the famed 1954 television production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, starring Maurice EvansMaurice Evans (actor)
Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. In terms of his screen roles, he is probably best known as Dr...
and Judith Anderson
Judith Anderson
Dame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE was an Australian-born American-based actress of stage, film and television. She won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.-Early life:...
, but did not work on the 1960 remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
starring the same two actors. He was conductor of the first (and so far, the only) television version of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Wonderful Town (1958) (TV), as well as, in the preceding years, of the Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
productions of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 1957, The Taming of the Shrew in 1956, and The Tempest, in 1960, all with Maurice Evans. He also conducted the music for the Broadway musical version of Lil' Abner, but not for the 1959 film version of the show. The music in the film was conducted by Joseph J. Lilley. He also musically directed and vocally arranged the 1959 musical Take Me Along
Take Me Along
Take Me Along is a musical based on the Eugene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Joseph Stein and Robert Russell.-Background:...
.
Lehman Engel also composed the music for the 1939 Broadway revival of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, starring Maurice Evans, as well as for the original 1948 stage production of Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
's Anne of the Thousand Days
Anne of the Thousand Days
Anne of the Thousand Days is a 1969 costume drama made by Hal Wallis Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Charles Jarrott and produced by Hal B. Wallis. The film tells the story of Anne Boleyn...
, starring Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
and Joyce Redman
Joyce Redman
-Biography:She was born in County Mayo, Ireland, to an Anglo-Irish family. She was educated by a private governess in Ireland, along with her three sisters. She was trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art....
. In 1965 he served as the musical director for the Broadway production of La Grosse Valise (composer Gerard Calvi
Gerard Calvi
Gérard Calvi is a French composer.Interested in music from an early age, Calvi's first composing work was for the French production The Patron in 1949...
, lyrics by Harold Rome)
The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
Engel founded the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater WorkshopBMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop is a workshop in New York for musical theatre composers, lyricists and librettists.-History:The BMI Workshop was founded in 1961 by Lehman Engel and the performing rights organization BMI ....
, a workshop in New York
New York City
New 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...
for musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
composers, lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
s and librettists. Engel also founded and personally supervised the Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, originally based at the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County Music Center in Los Angeles.
Lehman Engel worked as musical director for the St. Louis Municipal Opera for a number of years before moving to New York to conduct 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...
. He won 6 Tony Awards, and was nominated for 4 more. The category
Tony Award for Best Conductor and Musical Director
The Tony Award for Best Conductor and Musical Director was first presented in 1948, and later discontinued after 1964.-1940s:* 1948: Milton Rosenstock – Finian's Rainbow* 1949: Max Meth – As the Girls Go-1950s:...
for which he won and was nominated no longer exists.
Recordings
Engel also conducted the first 3-LP version of Gershwin's opera Porgy and BessPorgy 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...
, a 1951 Columbia Masterworks Records
Columbia Masterworks Records
Columbia Masterworks Records was a record label started in 1927 by Columbia Records.It was intended for releases of classical music and artists, as opposed to popular music, which bore the regular Columbia logo. Masterworks Records' first release, in 1927, was a complete performance of the...
album which was highly acclaimed, but did not, as advertised, really feature the complete opera. The mono recording, starring Lawrence Winters
Lawrence Winters
Lawrence Winters , bass-baritone, was an African American opera singer who had an active international career from the mid 1940s through the mid 1960s. He was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve wide success and is viewed as part of an instrumental group of performers who...
and Camilla Williams
Camilla Williams
Camilla Ella Williams is an American operatic soprano and the first African American to receive a contract with a major American opera company.-Biography:...
, was eventually released on CD. It was the longest Porgy and Bess album made up to that time (129 minutes), and would remain so for many years, until it was superseded in the 1970s by two complete recordings of the opera which both won Grammys.
Between the late 1940s and early 1950s, under the supervision of Columbia Records executive Goddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson was the president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and from 1973 to 1975. He was also a composer, and studied with George Frederick McKay, at the University of Washington, Seattle....
, Engel conducted what were then the most complete recordings of several classic Broadway musicals of the past, many of which were appearing as albums for the first time - among them Girl Crazy
Girl Crazy
Girl Crazy is a 1930 musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Ethel Merman made her stage debut in this musical production....
(with Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
performing both Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
and Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
's old stage roles), Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay! is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play La Presidente by Maurice Hanniquin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English...
(with Barbara Ruick
Barbara Ruick
-Youth:Ruick was the daughter of actors Lurene Tuttle and Melville Ruick. She grew up acting out scenes with dolls, employing her mother as an audience. She attended Theodore Roosevelt High School , Burbank High School , and North Hollywood High School. She did little acting in high school but...
as Kay and Jack Cassidy
Jack Cassidy
John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...
as Jimmy de Winter), Babes in Arms
Babes in Arms
Babes in Arms is a 1937 musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Rodgers and Hart. It concerns a teen-age boy who puts on a show with his friends to avoid being sent to a work farm.- Production history:...
(again featuring Cassidy and Mary Martin) and Pal Joey (with Harold Lang
Harold Lang
Harold Lang was an American dancer and actor.-Biography:Lang began his professional career as a ballet dancer, making his professional debut with the San Francisco Ballet in 1938 and then going on to perform with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo two years later and American Ballet Theatre in 1943...
in the title role and Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Sonia Segal was an American actress and singer.Segal was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best remembered for creating the role of Vera Simpson in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"...
repeating her original 1940 stage role as Vera Simpson). All of these were studio recording
Studio recording
The term studio recording means any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.-Studio cast recordings:...
s, not original cast albums. The Pal Joey recording was so successful that it actually led to a major, long-running revival of the show in 1952, with the same two stars who had appeared on the album.
He also conducted what was then the most complete recording of The Student Prince
The Student Prince
The Student Prince is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Alt Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works...
(with Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville was an American tenor, who appeared in opera, operetta, and Broadway musicals.-Career:Rounseville was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He made his Broadway debut in a small role in the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms, then appeared in other musicals in...
as the Prince and Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten was an American operatic soprano.-Biography:...
as the barmaid Kathie) in 1952, as well as what was then the most complete recording of Oklahoma!
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
that same year. The Oklahoma! album used Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...
's original orchestrations and starred Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
as the cowboy Curly.
For RCA Victor, Engel conducted studio recordings of Carousel
Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
in 1955 (with Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...
as Billy Bigelow, Patrice Munsel
Patrice Munsel
Patrice Munsel is an American coloratura soprano, the youngest singer who ever starred at the Metropolitan Opera, nicknamed "Princess Pat"....
as Julie Jordan, and Florence Henderson
Florence Henderson
Florence Agnes Henderson is an American actress and singer. She is perhaps best known for her role of Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974...
as Carrie); and Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
in 1956 (with a very politically incorrect Merrill singing the roles of both Ravenal and the black stevedore Joe, Ms. Munsel as Magnolia, and Rise Stevens
Risë Stevens
Risë Stevens is a retired American operatic mezzo-soprano.-Professional life:Stevens studied at New York's Juilliard School for three years. She went to Vienna, where she was trained by Marie Gutheil-Schoder and Herbert Graf. She made her début as Mignon in Prague in 1936 and stayed there until...
as Julie La Verne). These versions were also more complete than previous recordings of these shows.
All of these recordings (except for Engel's Show Boat) were eventually issued on CD and were milestones in their time for their completeness.
As author
Engel also wrote several books on musical theatre. One of them, The American Musical Theatre: A Consideration, was perhaps the very first book to discuss in detail the writing of a Broadway musical, the elements that went into it, and the art of adapting "straight" plays into musicals.Engel was close friends with Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. He also mentored Stephen Flaherty
Stephen Flaherty
Stephen Flaherty is an American composer of musical theatre. He works most often in collaboration with the lyricist/bookwriter Lynn Ahrens...
, Andrew MacBean
Andrew MacBean
Andrew MacBean is a theatre director and writer based in New York City, New York and London, England.He was born in Toronto, Ontario on February 7, 1963, grew up in Pickering and Toronto, and attended Queen's University at Kingston, where he received a B.A. in Drama and Music...
, and Edward Kleban
Edward Kleban
Edward “Ed” Kleban was an American musical theatre composer and lyricist.Kleban was born in the Bronx, New York in 1939 and graduated from New York's High School of Music & Art and Columbia University, where he attended with future playwright Terrance McNally. Kleban is best known as lyricist of...
.