[Dixielandjazz] "The Melody Lingers On"

[Steve barbone]

Robert Wright was perhaps the ultimate musical adapter of classical music
into popular music. He may not be a household name, but his music, if not
OKOM, is pretty close. Plus he backed Sally Rand. :-) VBG

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Robert Wright, 90, Dies; Wrote Broadway Musicals

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: August 2, 2005

Robert Wright, a composer and lyricist who, with his professional partner,
George Forrest, made Broadway audiences swoon to the unlikely strains of
Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin, died Wednesday in Miami. He was 90.

His death was announced by his brother, Jack Wright, of Gloversville, N.Y.,
his only survivor. 

Mr. Wright's career had its roots in vaudeville and gained early momentum in
Hollywood, but he and Mr. Forrest are best known for transforming melodies
of Grieg and Borodin into fertile fodder for musical comedy in the hit shows
"Song of Norway," from 1944, and "Kismet," from 1953. Although their
Broadway career ran aground in later decades, the pair returned to the
spotlight with a musical adaptation of the Vicki Baum novel "Grand Hotel,"
which opened in 1989 and ran for more than 1,000 performances.

The professional partnership of Mr. Wright and Mr. Forrest, who died in
1999, dated back to their high school days in Miami in the 1920's. Mr.
Wright, born Sept. 25, 1914, in Daytona Beach, Fla., turned his skill at the
piano to professional ends at a precociously young age.

"I had won an amateur contest playing the Rachmaninoff C Sharp Minor Prelude
when I was 9 and went into vaudeville," he told The Associated Press in an
interview in 1989.

Mr. Wright played piano for the chanteuse Helen Morgan and the fan dancer
Sally Rand, but he was working in Hollywood, with Mr. Forrest, by the time
both men were in their early 20's. The team was hired by MGM to write for
musicals. Their greatest successes in Hollywood capitalized on the unusual
knack that would later bring them Broadway acclaim: an ability to turn
stretches of music from the classical canon into popular song.

For the operetta "Maytime," starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy,
they put lyrics to Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, turning it into a faux
opera. They worked similar magic for a piano composition by Rudolf Friml,
creating "The Donkey Serenade," sung by Allan Jones in "The Firefly" (1937).

Although the Wright and Forrest team wrote songs for dozens of movies,
earning three Oscar nominations, they left Hollywood after seven years.

It was through their association with Edwin Lester, whom they met in
Hollywood, that they came to work on "Song of Norway." An enterprising
producer of light opera, Lester had the surprising idea of creating a
musical biography of Grieg, using his music. The production, which ran for
860 performances on Broadway, briefly resurrected the romantic operetta
format. It also had hit songs, including "Strange Music," an adaptation of a
wedding dance that illustrated the skillful manner in which the Forrest and
Wright team could transform, through changes in rhythm, key and
orchestrations, themes from existing pieces of music into catchy songs.

After failed attempts to repeat the formula in "Gypsy Lady" (1946, music of
Victor Herbert) and "Magdalena" (1948, music by Villa-Lobos), the duo hit
paydirt again with "Kismet," set in the Arabia of legend and starring Alfred
Drake. A snippet of the "Polovtsian Dances" music from Borodin's opera
"Prince Igor" became the duet "Stranger in Paradise," and a snatch of a
string quartet inspired "Baubles, Bangles and Beads." Mr. Wright, Mr.
Forrest and, yes, Borodin, decades dead, won Tonys when the show was named
Best Musical.

A string of flops - originals and adaptations - followed. Among them was a
version of "Grand Hotel" called "At the Grand," starring Paul Muni, produced
in 1958. But decades later, the show was resurrected and rewritten, under
the supervision of the director and choreographer Tommy Tune. The production
had trouble during its Boston tryout, and Mr. Tune called in Maury Yeston to
write new songs and revise some of the Forrest-Wright score. But the show
was ultimately a success, and earned Mr. Wright another Tony nomination.

Although some of the Forrest and Wright team's commercial success could be
chalked up to those prodigiously talented collaborators they never met, Mr.
Wright pointed out that what might seem a simple process was really musical
surgery requiring sophisticated knowledge and skill.

"Writing original music is 10 or 20 times easier than the things for which
we are best known," he told The Associated Press. "The first thing you have
to do as an adapter is learn everything a composer ever wrote. Then you have
to assemble and assimilate the music. And finally, think the way he did."