Born into a poor Virginian family, John Treville Latouche
(1914-56), in his short life, made a profound mark on America's
musical theater as a lyricist, book writer, and librettist. The wit
and skill of lyrics elicited comparisons with the likes of Ira
Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Cole Porter, but he had too, noted
Stephen Sondheim, "a large vision of what musical theater could
be," and he proved especially venturesome in helping to develop a
lyric theater that innovatively combined music, word, dance, and
costume and set design. Many of his pieces, even if not commonly
known today, remain high points in the history of American musical
theater. "A great American genius" in the words of Duke Ellington,
Latouche initially came to wide public attention in his early
twenties with his cantata for soloist and chorus, Ballad for
Americans (1939), with music by Earl Robinson-a work that swept the
nation during the Second World War. Other milestones in his career
included the all-black musical fable, Cabin in the Sky (1940), with
Vernon Duke; an interracial updating of John Gay's classic, The
Beggar's Opera, as Beggar's Holiday (1946), with Duke Ellington;
two acclaimed Broadway operas with Jerome Moross: Ballet Ballads
(1948) and The Golden Apple (1954); one of the most enduring operas
in the American canon, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), with Douglas
Moore; and the operetta Candide (1956), with Leonard Bernstein and
Lillian Hellman. Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs,
participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated
poetry, adapted plays, and much else. Meanwhile, as one of
Manhattan's most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he developed a
wide range of friends in the arts, including, to name only a few,
Paul and Jane Bowles (whom he introduced to each other), Yul
Brynner, John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Kiesler, Carson
McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson,
Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams-a dazzling constellation of
diverse artists working in sundry fields, all attracted to
Latouche's brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support
for their work. This book draws widely on archival collections both
at home and abroad, including Latouche's diaries and the papers of
Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for
the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work.
General
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