“Forgotten Hollywood”- Cole Porter is Back on Broadway!
For the first time, a few lucky folks will get to hear a collection of lost Cole Porter songs. The one-night-only June 27th premiere of The Ambassador Revue at the Town Hall near Times Square will mark the first time the 1929 program has ever been staged outside Paris. The show — a revue with solo singers, tap dancers, and showgirls akin to the current Broadway hit After Midnight — was written at the beginning of Porter’s career, and has hints of his combination of witty lyrics and hummable melodies. The variety show will feature Tom Wopat singing a few songs, and the veteran of such Broadway shows as The Trip to Bountiful and Catch Me If You Can said the prospect is exciting. COLE PORTER ——>
The original show was staged at the Ambassadeurs nightclub near the Champs-Elysees. It was performed in English by American singers, including Morton Downey and Evelyn Hoey. Band leader Fred Waring was also there, and intriguingly, so was George Gershwin’s sister, Frances. It ran for a few months and then disappeared, with none of the music published in America. Porter later returned to America and went on to write hit songs like You’re the Top, I Get a Kick Out of You, Night and Day, Love For Sale, Begin the Beguine, and What Is This Thing Called Love. The variety show slipped into obscurity, with many Porter experts giving up on ever finding its music.
The missing work was found in the Universal Music archive in Milan. Then, the original orchestrations were discovered in Fred Waring’s archive at Penn State, and music was also uncovered for two more songs and a tune that had no lyrics. A concert of some songs — Boulevard Break, Blue Hours, and Fountain of Youth — returned to Paris in 2012.
I suspect the next stop after the presentation of this production will be a future Woody Allen project… just sayin’!
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2014 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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