Inventing Champagne: The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe

Lees' book is an exhaustively (exhaustingly?) researched look at the careers of two giants in the musical theater. My main objection to it is his absurd analysis of "Camelot." First, he is fixated on the percieved problem of anachronisms in Lerner's script, ignoring the fact that the piece is set in a mythical world, with only an oblique relationship to our own. The mix of cultural and historical references and styles is therefore completely appropriate. And I daresay few if any spectators of the show have ever even noticed, let alone been bothered by them.Second, he projects a bizaare homosexual obssesion of his own onto the relationship between Arthur and Lancelot. He is disturbed by Lerner's having made Lancelot physically attractive, despite this having been the traditional view of him. Granted, T.H. White interestingly chose to make him ugly in his novel "The Once and Future King," on which "Camelot' is based, but to have carried that over into the show would have necessitated a far greater running time to explain Guenevere's attraction to him; hardly practical, given the show's length.He says Lancelot is portrayed as "vain;" not true. He is unworldy, and therefore unaware of the need to be dishonest about his abilities in a corrupt world. Guenevere and the court percieve him as egotistical due to their own vanity and shallowness; until he performs a miraculous healing, which opens their eyes.Lees continues this strange misinterpretation when he comes to the film, going on and on about a "phallic" shadow on Arthur's face! If anyone in the world has noticed this beside Lees, or given it this wierd analysis, I am unaware of it.Nor does Lees acknowledge the great improvements Lerner made to the script when writing the film, changes which are now incorporated into the standard playscript as well.The strength of Lees' book is in it's backstage reportage, not in analysis or appreciation of Lerner and Loewe's work, where he is weak indeed.

Gene Lees's "Inventing Champagne" is a terrific look at the partnership that spawned "My Fair Lady," "Gigi" and "Camelot"--the collaboration between lyricist / librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Based upon exhaustive research and hundreds of interviews, this is the only book that tells the story behind some of the greatest works ever written for either stage or screen. Lerner comes across as a supremely gifted neurotic; Loewe as equally gifted, and vastly arrogant, yet free of the wild ambitions and assorted personal problems that plagued the obsessive Lerner. An unlikely pairing, yet one that had few rivals in the creation of theatrical songs. Lees' readable, in-depth portrait of Lerner and Loewe is a fascinating, well-written book that is more than worth reading.