Golden Age Musical
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The Golden Age musical is the classic mid-century Broadway style of the integrated book show, in which Rodgers-and-Hammerstein-era craft fused song, story, and dance into a seamless dramatic whole. Musically it is defined by lush full-orchestra scoring, sweeping romantic ballads, comic character numbers, soaring "legit" and warm belt voices, and songs so well-made they left the theatre as pop standards. Overtures, act finales, and dream ballets structure the evening, and lyrics prize elegance and wit. The mood is romantic, optimistic, and grandly melodic, the songbook era at the peak of its polish and confidence.
History
Oklahoma! (1943) launched the era by integrating Agnes de Mille's choreography with Rodgers and Hammerstein's storytelling, and the team followed with Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Alongside them, Irving Berlin (Annie Get Your Gun), Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls), Lerner and Loewe (My Fair Lady), and Bernstein and Sondheim (West Side Story, 1957) produced a run of enduring classics. Centered on Broadway and preserved on Goddard Lieberson's cast albums, the Golden Age set the template for the American musical; its songs became the core of the Great American Songbook and the standard of the form.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'(1943) — Alfred DrakeSpotifyYouTube
- I Could Have Danced All Night(1956) — Julie AndrewsSpotifyYouTube
- If I Loved You(1945) — John RaittSpotifyYouTube
- Some Enchanted Evening(1949) — Ezio PinzaSpotifyYouTube
- The Sound of Music(1959) — Mary MartinSpotifyYouTube
- Luck Be a Lady(1950) — Robert AldaSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Ethan Mordden, Rodgers & Hammerstein (1992)
- Geoffrey Block, Enchanted Evenings
- Larry Stempel, Showtime (2010)