GREAT LADY
GREAT LADY

Details
GREAT LADY
LOEWE, Frederick and CROOKER, Earl lyricist. "GREAT LADY." Opened in New York, December 1938. Produced by Dwight Deere Wiman. Choreography by Jerome Robbins.

"GREAT LADY": AN EARLY BROADWAY OPERETTA BY LOEWE SET IN REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE

Loewe's extensive archive documenting the ambitious but unsuccessful operetta Great Lady, a collaboration with Earl T. Crooker, with whom Loewe had earlier worked on The Illustrator's Show and a 1937 show, Salute to Spring, performed at the St. Louis Municipal Opera. That production was extremely well received, prompting a commission from the producer Dwight Deere Wiman, heir to the John Deere tractor fortune, to write Great Lady. Crooker's plot was dauntingly complex, and the scene shifted rapidly from modern-day America to France at the time of the Revolution and Terror (a "time-travel" theme not unlike that of Lerner and Loewe's later success, Brigadoon). The elaborate show ran a disappointing 20 performances before closing. Loewe's archive includes melodic drafts of most numbers, more finished scores of half a dozen, plus transitional music and a "Silhouette Ballet"; many show the process of revision during composition. Totaling: 102 1/2 pages of manuscripts, mostly in Loewe's autograph.

Contents:
"There Had To Be The Waltz," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 1/2 pages
Untitled" ("Step, By Step ... Day By Day"), autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1- 2 1/2 pages
"One Little Pilgrim's Progress (Silhouette Ballet), manuscript piano-vocal score, title and lyrics in the hand of Loewe, 9 pages
"I'll Take My Love - Tavern Scene," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 1/4 pages
"Cinderella," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 page
"Once in Every Lifetime," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 1/2 pages, crossed through with large "X"
"I'll Take My Love," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 1/2 pages
"Promenade," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 1/2 pages
"Good Night Madame," autograph manuscript melodic sketch, no lyrics, by Loewe, 1 page, crossed through with a large "X"
"Why Can't This Night Last Forever?", autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 1/2 pages (including preliminary "Verse")
"Madame Is At Home," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 page
"Goodnight Madame," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 1 page
"Road To Paris," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 pages
"Tongues May Wag," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 pages
"Transition. Act I.-- Madame Is At Home,'" autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 5 pages
"Transition. Act II --'To Whom It May Concern,'" autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 3 pages
"The Night Can Be Blind -- Linkmen" (text: "The night has a thousand eyes"), autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 pages
"The Night Can Be Blind - Officers," autograph manuscript melodic sketch with lyrics, by Loewe, 2 pages
"I'll Take My Love," autograph manuscript piano-vocal score (two voice parts) with lyrics, by Loewe, with pencilled revisions and notations, 4 pages, in ink
"Ballad of the Streetsinger," autograph manuscript piano-vocal score with lyrics, by Loewe, 6 pages, in ink, new text added and many revisions in pencil
"Goodnight Madame," autograph manuscript piano-vocal score with lyrics, by Loewe, 3 pages, in ink
"Tongues May Wag," autograph manuscript piano-vocal score (three voice parts) with lyrics, by Loewe, 7 pages, in ink
"Tongues May Wag," manuscript piano-vocal score, apparently in a copyist's hand, lyrics in the hand of Loewe, pencil revisions probably by Loewe, 7 pages, in ink
"Tempo di marcia," autograph manuscript piano score, no lyrics, 3 pages
"Promenade. Improve Myself," manuscript piano-vocal score, apparently in a copyist's hand, but the lyrics added by Loewe, 6 pages, in ink, pencil markings and notes by Loewe
"May I suggest," piano score, apparently in a copyist's hand, with pencilled changes and markings by Loewe, 5 pages
"Transition - Scene 6," manuscript piano score, in a copyist's hand, pencilled revisions and large deletions by Loewe, 15 pages, WITH PENCIL MELODIC SKETCH BY LOEWE ON BLANK PAGE
"Change Into Past" (transitional passage), manuscript piano score, 1 page
"And So Will You," manuscript piano score, 2 pages, in ink
"Transition to 'Just a Stitch in Time," autograph manuscript piano score, by Loewe, no lyrics, page 1 only
Untitled draft fragments, autograph manuscript piano-vocal scores, with text by Loewe, 3 pages.
Great Lady