"A Weekend of Music"

Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“A Weekend of Music”

December 19, 2017

“Where words fail, music speaks.”

                                                                                                Hans Christian Anderson

A regret is that I cannot sing. My grandfathers could sing, but neither of my parents could carry a tune. And I was never taught to read music. But I do enjoy it and envy those that are musical. I marvel at composers who conceive in their minds notes and voices emanating from multiple instruments and vocal chords, using different melodies, yet harmonizing in a beautiful symphony of sound.

The Hill-Stead Museum – now a National Landmark – is situated on 152 acres in Farmington, Connecticut, just west of Hartford. The house is a 33,000 square-foot colonial revival – “a great new house on a hill top,” is the way the American author Henry James described it, shortly after it was built in 1901. The house was built for Alfred Atmore Pope, an Ohioan industrialist, and his wife Ada. It was designed by his daughter Theodate who had attended Miss Porter’s school in the same town, in the 1880s. Today, the house and its furnishings are just as they were when Ms. Pope (or Mrs. John Riddle as she was then) died in 1946.

Inside the house are nineteen rooms, on whose walls hung dozens of impressionist paintings, including works by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and James McNeil Whistler. There is a John Singer Sargent portrait of Mrs. Pope. Setting the stage for the evening, there were scattered throughout the house mannequins dressed in costumes from Broadway musicals performed over the years at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut.

In the drawing room, where we were to sit, was a rare, six-legged Steinway grand piano. On the walls were two Degas’, one Manet and three Monet’s, including two of his “haystacks.” Set in two semi-circles were about twenty-five folding chairs for us lucky few. Within those elegant surroundings, one felt like a guest at Downtown Abbey, certain that Maggie Smith would appear, eyeing us the way she does when something isn’t right – the wrong shoes or, trousers in need of a pressing – but with that hint of an approving smile for what we were about to hear.

Caroline and I had been invited by friends whose daughter is the museum’s director. The Friday night program in early November was titled “From Page to Stage – Selections from Broadway’s Early Musicals.” It was arranged by Tim Stella who has directed or co-directed such Broadway shows as “Phantom of the Opera,” Jesus Christ Superstar,” A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and “Guys and Dolls.” Mr. Stella now lives with his wife in Farmington. He played the Steinway. His wife, Florence Lacey, was one of the company. Ms. Lacey began her Broadway career as Irene Malloy in “Hello Dolly.” Her biggest role was as Eva Peron in “Evita.” Mr. Stella brought with him two other husband-wife teams: John Cudia, a tenor (Curly in “Oklahoma,” and Cassio in Verdi’s “Otello”) and Kathy Voytko (Francesca in “The Bridges of Madison County” and Christine in “Phantom of the Opera”), and Ray Hardman, a baritone (a singer of opera, oratorio and musical theater) and his wife Kathleen Hardman, who has sung with the Connecticut Lyric Opera, the Juilliard Opera Theater, Marlboro Music Festival and the Santa Fe Opera.

The program began with John Cudia singing “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning,” the opening song in Oklahoma. In the movie version, we hear Curly off-stage and then watch and listen to him as he comes into view, riding his horse, singing the song. In this version, there was no horse, but Cudia began the song off-stage, and entered the drawing room full-voiced, walking among us.

Fourteen songs were sung, including “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Send in the Clowns,” “I Dreamed a Dream,” and “Bring Him Home.” The final song of the evening was, “All I Ask of You,” from “Phantom of the Opera” and which depicts Raoul and Christine pledging their love, ignorant they are overheard. It was sung by the husband-wife team of Cudia and Voytko. In the Broadway musical, it is the song, followed by the menacing reprise sung by the Phantom, that concludes Act One.

The next evening, a (mostly) amateur group called The Six of Clubs, presented “King Cole: The Words and Music of Cole Porter.” They did so at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, with a reception at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts. The group was formed in 2010 in New York City by old friends with musical talents, “to perform songs for our friends from The Great American Songbook – the finest American songs of Broadway musical theater and Hollywood musicals.”

The venue was the First Congregational Church in Old Lyme, with its “perfect acoustics.” The current building was rebuilt as a Meetinghouse in 1910 – the fifth on the same site since 1665 – and dedicated by Woodrow Wilson whose wife was studying at the Old Lyme Art Colony. Because of its acoustics, the church is home on five weekends a year to one of Old Lyme’s treasures, Musical Masterworks, which brings chamber music from the New York Philharmonic, to the village of Old Lyme.

Vocalists included Nicholas Firth, baritone, who doubled as narrator; soprano Beatrice (Bebe) Broadwater; baritone Win Rutherfurd; tenor Rich Miller; soprano Angela Cason, and Armenian-American tenor Brett Noorigian Colby, who has performed in numerous operas in New York and New Jersey. John Hargraves was on the piano.

Twenty Cole Porter songs were performed, covering twenty-eight years. The earliest was “Let’s Misbehave” from the 1928 Broadway musical “Paris,” Porter’s first hit, written when he was 36. Three songs were performed from the 1956 film musical “High Society,” apart from “Les Girls,” his last show. “True Love,” sung by Bebe and Rich, was his last hit. From the same musical, “Well, Did You Ever,” was sung by Nick and Win, with an ad-libbed insertion of Harvey Weinstein at the “Astor Bar.”

The program began with the ensemble singing “From this Moment On,” from the Broadway show “Out of this World,” which opened in 1950, when Cole Porter was on top of the world. The evening ended with the ensemble singing “It’s Delovely” written by Porter for the 1936 Broadway show, “Red, Hot and Blue.” In the original cast, Bob Hope and Ethyl Merman sang the song as a duet. Included in the repertoire was “Love for Sale,” from the 1930 show “The New Yorkers.” We were told the song had the double distinction of being Cole Porter’s favorite and of having been banned from the radio. Cole Porter died in 1964 at age 73. A widower, he suffered for six years from ulcers that caused his right leg to be amputated. A sad end for a great artist. But his music lives on.

Thinking back on those two evenings – so different yet so alike, one with professional musicians, the other showing what non-professionals can do – brought joy, but also a recognition that putting words to my feelings would be impossible – “…where words fail, music speaks…,” as Hans Christian Anderson wrote. Plato is supposed to have said that music “gives soul to the universe, wings to the wind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” If he didn’t, I will. For I went to bed that Sunday night, unable to hum the tunes, but filled with the gaiety music brings, letting the wings of my imagination take flight into my soul-filled dreams.