BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY

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After many, many travails, our heroine, Cunegonde, has become an expensive courtesan in Paris. As she laments her sordid circumstances, she suddenly remembers her dear Dr. Pangloss’s theory of optimism: that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds – that’s right: even war, disease and deadly earthquakes! So Cunegonde scolds herself to look on the bright side –that being, of course, the cascades of jewels ornamenting her from head to toe. Here is “Glitter and be Gay” – Broadway’s very own ode to bling.

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NarrationJamie BernsteinBroadway
MOZART, YOU KID, YOU!

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Hello, everybody! It's me, Wolfgang -- you know: MOZART. Surprised to see me? Well, I just had to show up for my birthday party. I love parties! And I certainly couldn't miss my 250th. Okay, so it was two years ago, but hey: I’m still celebrating!  I'm looking pretty good for 252, don't you think??

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NarrationJamie BernsteinMozart
COWBOYS, CABALLEROS & COPLAND!

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Yep: Billy the Kid was one of the most famous outlaws in the Wild West. When Billy was just fifteen, he went to jail for stealing some butter -- but he was so skinny, he managed to escape from the jailhouse by climbing UP the chimney! Sort of a backwards Santa Claus thing. For the next six years, Billy the Kid was the meanest outlaw in the Wild West -- until Sheriff Pat Garrett shot him dead. At the age of 21, Billy the Kid’s short and nasty life was over.
 
Aaron Copland was so fascinated by this Wild West story that he wrote the music for a whole ballet about “Billy the Kid.”

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NarrationJamie BernsteinCopland
THE BERNSTEIN BEAT

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Hi everybody! I’m Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein's daughter, and this is the wonderful Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and this is our conductor, Maestro Michael Barrett. Didn’t that music make you want to tap your feet and bop around in your chair? Well, that’s what it’s supposed to do! My father wrote that music to wake everybody up…

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NarrationJamie BernsteinBernstein Beat
TALK - LEONARD BERNSTEIN: A BORN TEACHER

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People often say that Leonard Bernstein was a born teacher, but actually it's more accurate to say that he was a born student who just couldn't wait to share what he learned. In his whole life, he never stopped studying.
 
Leonard Bernstein had such facility as a teacher that he was sometimes not taken seriously as a scholar. But make no mistake; hereally did his homework. As a young student, he applied himself at Boston Latin School, Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He made the most of his liberal arts education at Harvard, where he studied as wide a range of subjects as he could fit into his schedule.

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TalkJamie BernsteinTeacher
A TALK BEFORE "MASS"

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From his earliest conflicts with his father, Leonard Bernstein was already establishing a template for a lifetime of wrestling with his creator, of confronting authority. Over and over again, he turned to his father's beloved Hebrew biblical texts for both inspiration and disputation. These texts appear in so many pieces over my father’s  lifetime that taken together with the music, they document a lifelong, heated dialogue with God. MASS is a particularly impassioned chapter of the argument.

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TalkJamie BernsteinMass
A TALK ON CANDIDE

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Here's the irony: at the point where the score chokes you up, that's the point where Bernstein and Voltaire have parted ways.
 
Voltaire's caustic sensibility was much closer, actually, to Lillian Hellman's than to Bernstein's. As effervescent and delightful as the songs are in "Candide," it was not enough for Bernstein to leave it at that. He just had to give the show some heart. But in truth, that's not in the genuine spirit of Voltaire.

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TalkJamie BernsteinCandide