Fancy Free was the symphonic ballet which was the initial entry in a series of Bernstein stage works focused on aspects of New York City. The scenario involves three sailors during WWII on shore leave in NYC for just 24 hours, trying to see everything and meet girls. Premiering in l944, it was Bernstein’s first major hit as a composer. It was followed by the Broadway musicals On the Town and Wonderful Town, and eventually by West Side Story – his biggest hit of all.
The full ballet is about a half hour vs. the shorter suite usually heard. It opens onstage with a juke box playing the blues number Big Stuff, which in the original was sung by Billie Holiday. The piano has a major role in the score. The jazzy/bluesy Bernstein style, full of incisive syncopation, is already in full bloom here.
The much later ballet Dybbuk, comes from 1974 and failed to win anywhere near the acceptance of Fancy Free. It’s odd scenario concerns the respective son and daughter of two close friends. The two fathers have pledged their children to marry when of age but the father of the son dies and the father of the daughter proceeds to arrange a marriage of her to a wealth suitor. The son calls upon the mystical Kabbalah to get his way, but is killed in the process. His spirit returns as a dybbuk – a Yiddish ghost – and possesses the girl. A group of rabbis exorcise and expel the dybbuk, but the girl finds she cannot live without her promised bridegroom and renounces her own life. The music is angular and skirts atonality, though without being serialized. The score pits two musical elements against one another – both stylized conceptions of music for the human world and for the spiritual world. There is no play-by-play description in the booklet but there are 19 separate sections of the ballet identified, which aid in following the music. Five of the sections incorporate the baritone and bass soloists.
– John Sunier
