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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the second of a three-part series examining the extraordinary work of composer Stanley Silverman. This program originally aired in 1980 and featured songs from notable Silverman shows like Elephant Steps, Dr. Salovey's Magic Theater, and Hotel for Criminals. After Richard and I finished it, we had the problem of finding a director because Richard had not directed at that point. We talked to various directors. Well, anyhow, to make a long story short, he said, well, there's nobody else.

Let me do it. I've just started to direct my own work anyhow. And that June, right before the summer, he had done quite successfully one of his eye-to-eye plays, you know, his first odd play, and it was very good. The conductor was easy enough because I had just come back from the Monday evening series in California where Lawrence Foster was supposed to conduct a chamber concerto of mine, and he was not available. So they sent in his assistant, young Michael Tilson Thomas, who was this, you know, very young kid, and he was just, I mean, absolutely brilliant. And we had a big fight about Michael. Convincing him that Richard could direct was okay because they said, fine, let Richard direct, you know.

But when it came to conducting, mind you, this was the first big opera that Tanglewood itself had commissioned since the Benjamin Britten days in the 40s, so there was like a lot riding on it. And remember also that Tanglewood is a conductor's place. I mean, Koussevitzky really presented Bernstein and Lucas Foss and all those, Cavaglio, all those conductors there, Abbado. Well, anyhow, we prevailed and Michael conducted it. Well, it's one of those things that is corny when you hear other people talk about it, but it was a dream premiere. It was a totally strange experience of a strange work that was untested even to us because it was not written in any singular recognizable style that we could say, there, we've done it, we've written another Tales of Hoffman.

And there was this audience that we didn't know, and there was this, you know, Michael's debut, it was Richard's debut, it was my debut. Prill Smiley had worked with us on the sound effects, this brilliant electronic music composer. We had a filmmaker, Ernie Gare, and Power Booth, this just stunning artist, you know, working with Richard on the designs. And there we all just sat, and it was just like, for us, what you read about the On the Town opening must have been like. I had my photograph taken today, standing amidst my friends and acquaintances. But something curious occurred in my mind. All of these friends were anonymous. I couldn't separate the ones I knew well from other friends I hardly knew at all. And wondering what kind of picture I'd take, I turned and gave my face to the wall.

[3:01] Paul Lazarus: I couldn't separate the ones I knew well from other friends I hardly knew at all. And wondering what kind of picture I'd take, I turned and gave my face to the wall.

[5:19] Paul Lazarus: You're listening to Anything Goes with special guest composer Stanley Silverman. Roland Gagnon performed I Had My Photograph Taken Today from the original cast recording of Stanley Silverman and Richard Forman's opera Elephant Steps. Now back to a pre-recorded interview with composer Stanley Silverman. What were you two talking about, you and Richard, in shaping the piece?

[5:48] Stanley Silverman: The two things, of course, that come to mind was his feeling for the magic of the work, that it was a kind of a cult work, and it dealt with a theatrical mysticism that was incredibly pregnant to somebody like myself who would love to write Russian fairytale music. In this case, the elements being secret broadcasts and gangsters with secret messages controlling the airwaves. And here's this man, this patient, who hears the calling and wants to take the elephant steps, meaning his quest, his giant steps towards enlightenment. And his guru is urging him on, and all around him are the non-believers, the victims, the hopeless, the people that are just sitting there saying, can't figure out what's wrong with this guy, keep him in bed, tie him down, because he's got delusions, and the piece in fact being sympathetic to the delusions.

[7:09] ♪ Musical number: "Come, Sing, My Heart" — performed by Stanley Silverman ♪

[8:39] ♪ Musical number: "Stop Seeing Reinhardt" — performed by Stanley Silverman ♪

[10:14] Paul Lazarus: Stop seeing.

[10:17] ♪ Musical number: "Watch Me Put My Right Foot" — performed by Marilyn Sokol ♪

[16:40] Stanley Silverman: You are listening to Anything Goes featuring composer Stanley Silverman. One of the things I did in Stratford, Ontario, was I wrote a version of the Satyricon which used a lot of songs with Roman references and it ran for the whole summer at the Avon Theatre and was very successful there. We were trying to get that done in New York. It was a very large, big show with a big orchestra, a large cast and the option ran out and I was left with the score. Richard came to see it and liked it very much and since the lyrics were a combination of work by a very talented Canadian, Tom Hendry and in fact Roman poets like Juvenal and Petronius, Richard examined the material and put together Dr. Salovey's Magic Theatre by actually making a book based on a combination of the songs and a Marcel Duchamp painting in Philadelphia that he liked very much and he invented... What's the title of that painting?

It's the one that you sort of peep through a little opening and see these dolls and little figures. I haven't seen it but I remember him talking about it and of course Salovey was... Rose Salovey was one of Duchamp's aliases.

[18:01] Stanley Silverman: Dr. Salovey's Five Day Cure.

[18:04] Stanley Silverman: Dr. Salovey's Five Day Cure.

[18:06] Stanley Silverman: Dr. Salovey's Five Day Cure.

[18:09] Stanley Silverman: Dr. Salovey's Five Day Cure.

[18:15] ♪ Musical number: "The First Day's Treatment" — performed by Stanley Silverman ♪

[19:55] ♪ Musical number: "Money in the Bank" — performed by Stanley Silverman ♪

[20:35] Paul Lazarus: Anthony Burgess wrote in the liner notes to the record of Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre that he called you, first of all, one of the most versatile musicians of present-day America, and he went on to say that Stanley Silverman's command of all available idioms, from musique concrète to rock, is formidable. The score of Dr. Selavy represents an anthology of popular styles, many of them delivered through a haze of irony or satire. A criticism that I've heard aimed at you is that there is too much use of well-known idioms or maybe musical clichés, however intelligently they are used, and not enough of Stanley Silverman. How do you respond to that?

[21:32] Stanley Silverman: Well, one of the things that you'll probably play today does deal with that a little bit. I've written some songs with Richard and songs with Arthur Miller that I think you'll play one or two of that probably are maybe more directly non-influenced, but I don't think those things are any more me than the fact that I just can't get over that when I'm living in a particular society at a different time in which the language itself, the musical language, is so marvelously scattered and varied that I don't understand. I have to be honest with you, I don't understand that criticism any more than I understand discussing Beethoven's language as being too much Haydn, you know, the early part, or that the Columbia Princeton School, which I admire very much of classical composition in the 60s or 70s, sounded too much like Webern, or that Webern sounded too much like Schoenberg.

I think that invariably you start by developing a language that is very much based on the music that you most admire, and hopefully you then sort of build up to an original state where you can say more personal things. So, I mean, I'm not going to jump the gun if that's what's waiting ahead. If I'm going to spend the next 30, 40 years writing in a much more private style that is, quote, more me than supposedly this other music, then that's something I'll have to wait and see. Yeah, I don't share that opinion at all. That's a kind of generalized approach to your work, first of all, because if you're dealing with something like Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre, there's a very, very constructive use of those popular modes that maybe are associated with other people, whatever, but it's used for a purpose and it's not used as a... even to discuss it as being influenced by really isn't to the point because you're using it on purpose. I mean, it's not a matter of... you're choosing to use that.

[23:50] Stanley Silverman: Well, I think in that, one thing I can say is that I do approach composition, I mean, I'm not going to change, you know, as role acting a little bit, you know, so that I'm very... it was Richard, really, that put me on to reading about Olivier. You know, he used to say that Olivier is like Picasso. I mean, this is a great artist of the 20th century and the way he looks at acting is equal to the way a Schoenberg would look at composing and that his ability to go either against material or to find an entropy in the material, a kind of life in the material that is not the common life, that he is not as interested in what people will think about what his choice will be as much as his choice. To make a long story short, the way he approaches a role is not unlike the way... well, this is ridiculous, I can't compare myself, it's not about that, but in other words, I was influenced mightily by going into musical language that way, you know, by saying, here I am and I think I want to try this in a language that maybe has been used in books to Huda's time and just see what I can make out of it.

[25:27] ♪ Musical number: "Swinging at the Stock Exchange" — performed by George McGrath and the original cast of Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre ♪

[27:59] ♪ Musical number: "Life on the Inside" — performed by Amy Taubin ♪

[29:42] Paul Lazarus: You've been listening to a look at composer Stanley Silverman part two. Anything Goes backstage with Broadway's best is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. For more information, visit anythinggoespl.com. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.