Perhaps the most well-known American conductor of the fifties, Leonard Bernstein, is currently enjoying some popularity. He was hailed as the mentor and role model motivating the aspiring conductor in last year's Tár. Now, with Maestro, Bradley Cooper is directing, co-writing (with Josh Singer), and starring in his own biopic.
"A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them, and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers," says Bernstein, who also provides the opening quotation for the movie. The main conflict Maestro is interested in examining is that which existed between Leonard Bernstein's complicated sexual identity, which includes encounters with other men, and his loyal and loving marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre, which produced three children.
Bernstein the conductor, who is well-liked by the audience and admits to being a people person, and Bernstein the composer, who needs time alone to create, are at odds in a secondary way. The conflict between Bernstein, the composer of well-known musicals like West Side Story, and Bernstein, who considers this work to be light and believes he should be focusing on writing serious symphonic works—despite the fact that his efforts in this domain are typically met with less praise—remains. However, Felicia asks, "Why would you want to give this up?" following a fantastic rehearsal of the ballet Fancy Free, which served as the inspiration for the musical Wonderful Town and its movie version On the Town.
Cooper eschews many of the typical whistle-stops found in biopics in favor of an unwavering emphasis on the marriage. A scenario wherein Montealegre and Bernstein withdraw to a private room during a party and quickly recite each other's minibios should be of particular interest to anyone interested in learning more about either of their origins. Four years after the two become engaged, we find ourselves at the family apartment where the real Edward R. Murrow is playing on the soundtrack, summarizing Lenny's professional accomplishments in preparation for a TV interview. Subsequently, as part of a pitch to write a biography, a journalist uses the same technique to tell Bernstein about his later résumé, now that he is in his fifties.
Similar oblique treatment is given to other notables who appear in the story; rather than being identified, they are primarily presented as "if you know, you know." The pair that worked with Bernstein on Wonderful Town, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, are seen giggling madly and performing a little song at a party. For those who are not familiar with musical theater, this may leave them wondering who these two crazy people are. Again, if you didn't know who was coming in, you won't find out here. Choreographer Jerome Robbins, who worked with Bernstein on West Side Story and Fancy Free, is acknowledged by name and at least gets to dance a little (rather brilliantly, thanks to Michael Urie).
Similarly, during a family picnic, there's a bespectacled, somewhat geeky guy—referred to as “Aaron” at one point—who plays a duet with young Lenny and appears to be an old friend, offering Bernstein a shoulder to cry on. Actually, this is Aaron Copland (Brian Klugman), the renowned composer of ballets like Rodeo and Fanfare for the Common Man. Although this avoids awkward introductions such as "Hey, Aaron, congratulations on winning a Pulitzer Prize for 'Appalachian Spring'!" the critic Alex Ross of the New Yorker noted, it does not reveal to the audience the extent of Copland's influence in Bernstein's life. Although he said, "I had long adored him through his music," he wrote that he had first met Copland as a student at Harvard. Moreover, Bernstein continued, Copland developed into "the closest thing to a composition teacher I ever had" and "a surrogate father to me." (This did not prevent Copland from subsequently deriding the compositions of his protégé as "eclectic in style and facile in inspiration—merely conductor's music.")
While Bernstein was attending Harvard, the two also had an occasional romantic relationship, but the movie doesn't say whether Felicia knew this or if it made her feel differently about Copland attending family events.
Since the focus is on the interpersonal relationships, many of the scenes feature conversations that are only known to the participants, making them difficult to verify. However, Singer has stated that he was inspired by the 1,800 letters that were eventually unsealed in 2010 and donated to the Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress following the composer's 1990 death. Nevertheless, we make an effort to distinguish between improvisation and scoring in Maestro.
Did Leonard Bernstein go on and become a star while serving as an understudy?
In the movie, a young Lenny, who was the New York Philharmonic's assistant conductor at the time, receives a call early in the morning in his apartment above Carnegie Hall. The usual conductor is ill, therefore Lenny will have to lead the orchestra in the afternoon performance without any practice. He joyfully smacks his sweetheart's behind, gets dressed, and dashes onto the stage of the concert theater. The unidentified young conductor's career is launched and he achieves great success.
This is essentially what transpired, albeit Bernstein was not quite as ill-prepared as the movie portrays. His responsibility as an assistant conductor was to stay up to date on the scores for the current season in case he had to step in at short notice. Bernstein even had time to see the regular conductor, the flustered Bruno Walter, for some coaching even though the orchestra was unavailable for a rehearsal. The New York Times published a front-page report on the drama. "I found Mr. Walter sitting up but wrapped in blankets, and he obligingly showed me just how he did it," he said. However, it was not just Bernstein's first time leading the Philharmonic without a rehearsal, it was also his first time directing the orchestra in general.
But what about Schnoz?
For those who haven't spent the last six months online, the first promotional stills for the movie featuring Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein with a very huge prosthetic nose caused a stir. Some people felt it was a caricature and stereotypically Jewish.
The nose is actually almost the same size as Bernstein's nose. The difficulty is that Bernstein's nose did not appear out of proportion like it does on Cooper since he had a different face shape and, to somewhat editorialize, was more attractive as a young man than Cooper (despite not having the actor's muscular build). Strangely, once Cooper begins playing the older Bernstein, the nose does not seem to be as prominent—possibly because the aging makeup counteracts it.
Were the Bernsteins Really That Close to One Another?
It becomes evident as Felicia (Carey Mulligan) and Lenny get to know one another more that they are soul mates and truly love each other's company. She suggests getting married and tells him, "I am willing to accept you as you are, without being a martyr." He introduces her to his friends with enthusiasm. Let's see what happens if you are allowed to act whatever you like without feeling guilty or having to make a confession. She only asks that he avoid embarrassing her and remain discreet. Felicia kicks Lenny out and they split up because she feels that he has become "sloppy" in his middle age and has been seen to be having an affair with a young man in public.
The broad strokes of the arrangement and the agreement it contained are true. Actually, when traveling through Costa Rica, Bernstein made the proposal to Montealegre. A letter to his sister Shirley, included in The Leonard Bernstein Letters, reveals that he truly loved her, if he was not overcome by emotion. He wrote, "How odd that you wrote to me about Felicia just now." "She has consumed my thoughts nonstop since I left America, and I've realized how much she means to me and always has.Since the beginning, I have sincerely and profoundly loved her despite all the obstacles that have continuously hindered my ability to love. I was thinking about her alone on the sea. Other girls, or boys, don't really matter.
"You are a homosexual and may never change—you don't admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your entire nervous system depends on a certain sexual pattern, what can you do?," Felicia wrote to her new husband shortly after they were married. Without becoming a martyr or offering myself as a sacrifice on the L.B. altar, I am ready to embrace you for who you are. (I just so happen to love you very much; if this is a disease, what better treatment is there?) You'll be able to communicate your feelings for me more easily because our marriage is built on sensitivity and respect rather than passion.
However, the movie omits a few significant scenes. Rather than being swept off her feet, Montealegre married Bernstein right away. The pair first connected in 1947, got engaged a few months later, and then called it quits. After becoming sexually engaged with actor Richard Hart (who, in the movie, stops by her dressing room when she's performing on Broadway), Montealegre—who is married but loyal to Bernstein—clearly fell in love. However, Hart passed away at the beginning of 1951, and she gave Bernstein another opportunity (this previous romance is brought up in a later moment when Felicia and Bernstein argue violently before splitting up, but we never really see Hart and Montealegre together).In August 1951, the pair revealed their second engagement, and a month later, they were married. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1949, Bernstein was enamored with Israeli soldier Azariah Rapoport.
Was Lenny's sexual orientation really a source of such ease?
Lenny seems to embrace himself exactly as he is in the movie, stating, "I find it deplorable that the world wants us to be only one thing."
It does seem improbable that a well-mannered Jewish boy in the 1950s would not have objected to his preferred sexual orientation. It is true that being gay or bisexual was not at all unusual in the circles that Bernstein walked in. Within the LGBT world, the American League of League was referred to as "the Homitern." Bernstein biographer Meryle Secrest was informed by the conductor's friend Antonio de Almeida that "they all went to bed with each other, but it was very casual." similar to a Turkish bath
However, Bernstein was so troubled by his inclinations that he sought the advice of multiple psychoanalysts (although, in the 1950s, visiting a psychotherapist was practically required for upper-class Manhattanites). He was a patient of Marketa Morris, a therapist known as "the Frau," in their contact with one another. David Oppenheim, his ex-lover and the man in bed when Lenny gets his big break, was married three times and fathered multiple children.
"You have to see a boy the day Felicia leaves, and you are now seeing her. the same old routine. Morris wrote to Bernstein, "You have to keep trying. The actor Farley Granger, who played in Hitchcock's Rope among many other movies, was the "boy"; Maestro makes no mention of him. Granger made it apparent in a letter to Bernstein that he is aware of the conductor's intimate relationship with Montealegre by writing, "I am having Dinner with Felicia tonight." She is a wonderful girl, and she undoubtedly adores you. In reality, Bernstein invited Granger along on the Costa Rican trip where he proposed to Montealegre. Thankfully, the actor declined, seemingly showing a stronger sense of boundaries.
Additionally, Sandor Rado, an analyst who focused on "curing" homosexual males, was seen by Bernstein. Secrest claims that Bernstein confided in a friend that "he had always been very adaptable where sex was concerned, but he had decided that homosexuality was a curse." He was really adamant and tense about it. He believed that being married had kept him from leading a homosexual lifestyle.
In fact, the marriage of Oscar Wilde and Constance, who were devoted to her despite knowing of her brilliant husband's liaisons with young men, is a good analogy for the one between Bernstein and Montealegre. He, like Bernstein, made her and their children the center of his emotional universe.
