by I went to a tribute to Leonard Bernstein at Lincoln Center this afternoon. I noticed that Bernstein repeated a few riffs in some very different pieces of music. Without hearing them all back to back like that I’m not sure I would have picked up on it. But I heard the beginning from the Chichester Psalms and then I kept hearing it all over the place.
And I noticed that one of his characters in On the Town has the same name as Haydn’s patron (Esterhazy). That had to have been on purpose, right?
Here is the audience!
And the performers! Among them was Cheyenne Jackson from Glee, he plays the guy who is the head of Vocal Adrenaline, and Michael Cerveris, he’s in Fringe occasionally, and this incredible soprano, Kelli O’Hara. I’m sorry I didn’t name them all, but everyone did a great job.
I assume that’s the same Kelli O’Hara that was in the recent South Pacific at the Beaumont. What a great thing to have seen. That thing about names must be common. In the original South Pacific (from 1949), one of the Navy nurses is named Ensign Liza Minelli. That must have beena wink from Rodgers and Hammerstain to their old pal Vincente Minelli, Liza’s dad.
Yes, my friends told me she was in South Pacific. She was amazing.
I saw Estelle Parsons in South Pacific in 1961 (!). She was amazing.