Breaking Character

Originally published in Breaking Character magazine for Concord Theatricals | November 30, 2015

By Karyn Levitt

On December 7th at Town Hall in New York City, Tony Kushner, Austin Pendleton, Michael Riedel and other notables from the world of academe and the theater, will take part in a unique celebration honoring theater legend Eric Bentley – poet, playwright, drama critic, translator, singer, editor, inductee into the American Theater Hall of Fame and member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters ­­ as he enters his 100th year. Among the evening’s literary and musical offerings will be a premiere performance of “Songs for Mother Courage” by French composer Darius Milhaud. Composed originally to Eric Bentley’s version of the Brecht play, it features the unpublished and to date unperformed orchestrations by the composer for an ensemble of 15 instruments.

As Eric Bentley’s most recent collaborator on another show – and as a soprano – I have the honor and privilege to be the first to perform these songs in concert, on which occasion the Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra under the direction of 4­time Emmy winning composer/conductor Glen Roven will play the historic score.

How did this come about? In the summer of 2011, it was the inspired urging of my acting coach that led me to consult Eric Bentley on the matter of my long­standing wish to perform a one-woman show of the songs of Kurt Weill. I wrote to Mr. Bentley asking for his advice and also whether I could take him out to lunch. The soon to be 95-year-old Mr. Bentley suggested in his email reply: “Karyn, there has been too much Kurt Weill in New York and too many singers have focused on him. If you want to offer songs by one Brecht composer, choose Eisler.” Mr. Bentley also made mention on that occasion of the Milhaud score for Mother Courage and Her Children, and other unperformed songs by composers with whom he had collaborated.

Yes, the great Eric Bentley was giving this unmet correspondent (me) an assignment, which started me on a path requiring weeks of research into his various suggestions, and leading finally to a lunch meeting at his NYC apartment. After much interesting discussion, he presented me with his own unpublished English versions of Hanns Eisler's lieder, and gave me a tour of his apt. of 50 years, where in his library I gazed in awe at shelf upon shelf of his published books, plays, and translations. “How could someone write so much?” I asked him. He answered with a smile, “I’ve had a long time…!”

As Eric Bentley was already well into his 90s, I understood that a certain urgency was appropriate in undertaking any sort of artistic collaboration with him. So I charged ahead! I set aside the idea of a Kurt Weill show, as well as a piece about the origins of the Yiddish theater on which I was working with my colleague Aryeh Finklestein, and put all other musical plans on hold. I needed to determine whether the material Mr. Bentley had offered suited my abilities as a performer. I also knew at that first meeting (and said so to Mr. Bentley as I took my leave) that there should be some sort of major celebration honoring him and which would also feature his translations of songs. He called to me as I stood at the elevator, “While I’m still around?” I said, “Yes, of course while you’re still around!” I had made a commitment to honor his masterful contributions to the culture over seven impressive and unprecedented decades, and I was going to see it through!

I decided that the Eisler songs were indeed for me. There ensued an intense period when in less than 6 weeks I learned more than 33 of Eisler’s (not easy) songs, and further performed them several times, including at a rehearsal at Eric Bentley’s UWS apartment which we filmed for the archival record. Overnight, Eric Bentley became my mentor in the Brechtian style of singing, and our rehearsals over the next year and a half were like a series of master classes for one student with no audience. This intense collaboration yielded the show ERIC BENTLEY’S BRECHT­EISLER SONG BOOK, which my pianist Eric Ostling and I have performed at distinguished venues all over the country. And now four years later Eric Ostling and I have recorded our album: ERIC BENTLEY’S BRECHT­EISLER SONG BOOK, soon to be released on the Roven Records label, and distributed by NAXOS.

Fast forward to the spring of 2014 -­ after many successful performances of our show at distinguished music, theater, and cultural venues across the country (and aided by a $25K grant from NOKIA Corporation), it was clear that our Brecht­Eisler Song Book project was now established. It was time, therefore, for a new project! Appropriately, we decided on a concert of “Songs for Mother Courage” by Darius Milhaud and Eric Bentley. Mr. Bentley allowed us to peruse his copy (the only one extant) of Milhaud’s original hand­written score. The project had been frozen in time at a moment in the late 1950s when the two authors had corresponded across the Atlantic ­- making their respective changes and discussing details, including Eric Bentley’s revisions to the text and the composer’s changes to his score.

Now, unbeknownst to Eric Bentley, Aryeh Finklestein and I had begun to plan an event paying homage to this theater legend, and which we intended would take place during his 98th or 99th year. As we did so, we naturally turned our attention to the Songs for Mother Courage. We simply knew that such an event in Eric Bentley’s honor must include these songs.

The prospect of performing songs from Mother Courage apart from a production was hardly straightforward and a not-uncomplicated one. First, apart from the piano­vocal score published by Samuel French to accompany a production of the play, the songs were not separately or conveniently published in a song book. One could not therefore merely select one’s songs and contact ASCAP for the rights to include them in a cabaret style show. Further, the original Broadway production in the late 1950s for which the music had been composed, had been cancelled due to a competing production featuring the music of German composer Paul Dessau, with Eric Bentley’s version of the play and the English translation of the Dessau songs. (This was the now famed Jerome Robbins production starring Anne Bancroft). It wasn’t until the 1990s that the first production of the Bentley­Milhaud version of the play was ever performed. This was staged at Lincoln Center by the Jean Cocteau Repertory Company – with music by Milhaud, but based only on the composer’s piano­vocal reduction of the score to which a new arrangement for a few instruments had been added. It is important to note that the full orchestration of Milhaud’s unpublished handwritten score—which has lain dormant for more than 65 years – has never been performed. And remarkably, not even Eric Bentley has heard it!

In the summer of 2014 (as I was preparing to move from Boston to NYC), with the assistance of Samuel French and Eric Bentley, and after several attempts, I reached Daniel Milhaud – the son and heir of Darius Milhaud – to ask him for the rights to perform his father’s original unpublished orchestration of music to Mother Courage. A most friendly email from Daniel came to me at the beginning of October. In November, I followed up with him again; but instead of hearing from Mr. Milhaud himself, I received a sad reply from his wife Nadine Milhaud informing me that her husband had tragically just passed away. I was especially moved when I learned from an obituary that he had passed away just two days after writing to me so generously and granting me permission.

To obtain the original score, I applied to the musical estate of Milhaud in Switzerland ­­ which gave me their blessings to bring forth Milhaud’s original orchestration to the world ­­ and provided me with a copy of Milhaud’s hand­written score ­- a privilege indeed. Still, the question remained: how we could perform songs from the play, apart from a production of the play? We approached Samuel French for the grand (dramatic) rights to perform songs from the Brecht play (in Bentley's translation), using for the first time the unpublished orchestral Milhaud score. Grand rights are appropriate when songs from a play are performed in character, or if some narrative or dramatic aspect is a part of the presentation (such as performing in costume).

Accordingly, for our historic performance on December 7th, we are having a period costume designed by celebrated theatrical/Broadway/opera costume designer Eric Winterling. The period is the Thirty Years War ­­ and the costume will be thus be a 17th century peasant dress. There will be other costume elements, too, as I am singing the songs assigned to several characters.

It might be of interest that we had to undertake to get the music printed in parts so that it would be playable by the musicians in the orchestra, a process which our album producer Glen Roven competently facilitated. This involved inter alia comparing the published piano vocal score with the original handwritten piano vocal score with the original handwritten orchestration (containing outdated lyrics, before Eric Bentley’s later revisions). Inevitably, this in itself has been a fascinating musicological exercise.

With the recent tragic attacks in Paris, we decided to dedicate this premiere performance of Songs for Mother Courage on Dec 7th “to the people of Paris in solidarity with them and in memory of the victims of the atrocity.” We were moved to do this because of the project's real connection to Darius Milhaud (a Parisian composer), because of Eric Bentley’s collaboration with Milhaud in the late 1950s, and because of the kind encouragement given to us by the late Daniel Milhaud, and more recently by his widow,

Nadine. She expressed delight at our invitation to her to attend the event in person, but regrettably is unable to travel from Paris.

The Eric Bentley event at Town Hall will feature Michael Riedel emceeing a tribute and concert in his honor. Tribute presenters will include Tony Kushner, Austin Pendleton, and Michael Paller of The American Conservatory Theater; Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, theatre historian and president of The Al Hirschfeld Foundation; as well as James Shapiro, Edward Mendelson and Phillip Lopate of Columbia University. The participants will offer readings from Eric Bentley's classic works, and share reminiscences and anecdotes. Eric Ostling and I will perform several Brecht­Eisler songs in English versions by Eric Bentley along the way, and finally we’ll present SONGS FOR MOTHER COURAGE by Darius Milhaud and Eric Bentley with the Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra conducted by Glen Roven. We hope you will be there to join the celebration on December 7th at Town Hall in NYC.