The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Allegro (1947) is one of the most important and historic musicals that most people have never heard of. It was R&H's third show, after Oklahoma and Carousel, and came out shortly after their only musical written directly for the movies, "State Fair," which won them an Oscar for best song ("It Might as Well Be Spring").
Allegro was a serious attempt on Oscar Hammerstein's part to craft an original story, one that contained numerous innovations. It was the first of what we now consider the "concept" musicals, shows that explore a particular idea rather than tell a specific story. The concept here was originally a cradle-to-grave story of a certain earnest everyman. That idea proved untenable, so Allegro wound up being the cradle-to-midlife-crisis story of one Joseph Taylor, Jr.
Hammerstein made significant use of an omniscient sort of Greek chorus, which commented on the action in unison to both the actors and the audience. The production concept represented a break from the literal realism of the time, and featured back-wall projections and a minimal, modular set that was both spare and complicated at the same time. Allegro also represented the beginning of the rise of the director/choreographer, in this case, Agnes de Mille. When we think of director/choreographers, we typically think of the men: Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Jerome Robbins, etc. But Agnes de Mille took on this dual role before any of the guys did.
So, Allegro is unquestonably a significant show. It just isn't very good.
Despite the biggest advance sale of any musical up to that time, the show sharply divided audience members and critics when it premiered in 1947. While some thought it sublime and appreciated the sheer ambition and scope of the show, others found it pretentious, preachy, and boring. I happen to fall in the latter camp. In his libretto, Hammerstein expresses the danger of social climbing and rampant materialism, and the result is cold, humorless, and didactic.
But even second-rate R&H is worth savoring, and until now show fanatics have had to make do with the severely truncated original cast recording of Allegro, which is only 33 minutes long. In an attempt to rectify this slight, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization has put its considerable resources behind a new studio recording of the score. The treatment is sumptuous, indeed, and features an interdisciplinary cast of the best the musical stage currently has to offer. The recording features Patrick Wilson as the central Joseph Taylor, the sublime Audra McDonald as his mother and opera hunk Nathan Gunn as his father.
But the fact that these terrific performers have very little actual recording time illustrates one of the major problems with Allegro: the best songs go to very minor characters and the Greek chorus. It's hard to work up any sympathy for these people when they do so little singing in the show and on the recording. The two best-known songs from the show are the lovely "So Far" and the rueful "The Gentleman is a Dope," sung respectively by
Judy Kuhn and Liz Callaway, who perform these songs and either disappear from the plot entirely, or show up out of nowhere and suddenly we're supposed to care.
The other problem with the show is that the central love story is cynical and empty, which was by design, but makes for a very unsatisfying experience. Joe grows up to wed his childhood sweetheart, Jenny, played here by Laura Benanti. Act 1 ends with their wedding, in which everyone onstage seems to question whether this is really a good idea, including the bride and groom themselves. It's the sort of thing Stephen Sondheim could have pulled off, but Hammerstein seems unable to make it compelling. (Sondheim actually served as a production assistant during Allegro's tryout period, and points to the show as providing inspiration for much of his later work.)
But the most damning evidence in the case against Allegro is the the songs themselves, which, other than the two listed above, simply aren't very good. There's some lovely music here -- and since this recording apparently represents every last note written for the show, we get to savor it all in one package -- but overall this score represents second-tier Richard Rodgers and third-tier Hammerstein. Many of the melodies and rhyme schemes are awkward and forced, and the overall emotional impact of the score doesn't even come close to the power of R&H's best work. It was nice to rediscover some of the songs from the show, including the jaunty title number, but overall I think I'm just going to file this CD into my collection and leave it there.
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