LESTER: ‘IT’S ALL A MATTER OF PERSONAL TASTE’

Edwin Lester, who is having a very large birthday party April 15 at the Music Center, was born 90 years ago.

For 40 of these 90 years, he ran the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Assn. with a nimble mind, impeccable ethics, a suit and tie--and a hand of steel in a white kid glove.

From the time that he founded the LACLO in the mid-’30s until his official retirement in 1977, his organization flourished and grew, becoming the most commercially successful and heavily subscribed musical theater enterprise in the nation with a bank balance of $2.5 million. It also brought Lester recognition as the most powerful single civilizing force in the life of the musical theater on the West Coast.

Lester, who was born in New York City and grew up in Providence, R.I., gave early warning signs. A career as a child soprano ended abruptly when his voice changed. Unfazed, he landed a job as pianist, conductor and director of entertainment at Detroit’s Cafe Frontenac on sheer seat-of-the-pants showmanship.

He was 19 years old.

His own artistic ambitions stemmed by a crack in the voice, Lester indulged his love of singing by managing other singers. To provide work for them during slow periods, he created a Civic Light Opera--and opened the floodgates to a producing career that was to combine coaching (some say bullying), entrepreneurial ingenuity, artistic acumen and salesmanship (a talent he’d refined while selling pianos for the Platt Music Co.).

During the prodigious Lester regime, LACLO never used a discounted ticket and saw to it that subscribers were treated with absolute respect. All letters were answered personally--either by him or by a member of the staff.

It was the Age of Chivalry.

A few days ago, Edwin Lester settled back in his office above the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion--an office he visits three times a week--and spoke about the musical theater, then and now.

Question: You’ve been in the business for more than 50 years. What are the two or three major factors that, in your view, have altered musical comedy down the years?

Answer: The Rodgers and Hammerstein partnership, which started around 1942 and led to “Oklahoma!,” developed into a succession of almost all hits. I discovered that most potently in my oral biography for UCLA when I was asked to name what I considered the 15 best musicals of all time.

I named the first 13 and then it became difficult. But the first 13 included five Rodgers and Hammerstein works: “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I”--which I consider the “Hamlet” of the musical theater--and “Sound of Music.”

There was a thoroughness to the way they did things, a tremendous compatibility between them. Oscar would write a lyric complete as a poem. When he brought it to Dick, it already had the feeling of music.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein shows created a whole generation in the musical theater, much of it based on good singing. You want good dancing, color, atmosphere, personality, but good singing is the key--particularly to longevity, because people remember music, but they don’t remember lyrics or book unless it was a team like Gilbert and Sullivan, or Rodgers and Hart, or Rodgers and Hammerstein.

When you became involved in production in the ‘30s, the emphasis was on operetta--book musicals with happy endings and a great emphasis on musicality. Now the vision is darker and the emphasis on technical extravaganzas, such as “Dreamgirls” and “Cats.” The designer seems as important as the composer-lyricist and more important than the book writer. Is it so?

I don’t quite agree that anything is more important than the book. In the early years, music was the only thing and it was not unusual for people to come to the box office to buy tickets for a show, humming its principal hit.

Longevity is my measurement when we speak of greatness. Shakespeare is the greatest because his work has lent itself so well to revival. All over the world.

What about a show like “Cats”?

I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no opinion. I do know all about it. It’s a great novelty. It has some great poetry back of it, because (T. S.) Eliot certainly knew how to write. (Andrew Lloyd) Webber is certainly a first-class composer in the modern idiom, but I don’t think that idiom’s going to live. Even in the symphonic field, very few of the moderns are played a great deal. At the same time, year after year, decade after decade, people still go to hear the Beethoven, the Brahms, the Bach. . . .

When somebody said to me, “You didn’t include ‘A Chorus Line’ in your top 15,” I replied “No, because I don’t think there’s any longevity there.” It’s a great show. I loved it when I first saw it down in the Village. I said then, “I’d give my right arm to get it into my season.” We bought it for San Francisco, but the Shuberts had it for L.A. We couldn’t play it here. But I don’t know that there’s anything in “A Chorus Line” that’s going to be great as a piece of literature. So much of it depends on production.

Do you think then that the musical has become more entertainment than art--and is it a significant distinction?

I think it’s all a matter of personal taste. The great mistake made in revivals is that there is rarely any updating of the books. For the most part, they’re no good except for a basic plot idea or a title. Scores were also often thrown together very fast. In New York, in the early days, a run of one season was considered a great success. So composers who were “hot” were writing constantly.

Some of that writing was very good, some very bad. Victor Herbert would be working on as many as three musicals at once--and doing all his own orchestrating. Whoever put the most pressure on him got something in a hurry--and it could very well be junk. But the best of Victor Herbert was wonderful.

What do you think of Stephen Sondheim?

I had Steve brought to me when he was very young by Lem Ayers, who was planning to do a show with him. He sat down and played and sang his own score. I was complimentary at the musicianship and the good lyricism, but it didn’t get under my skin.

Steve is so eager not to do anything that’s been done before that he steers clear of sentiment, of romance, and those are the things that in popular music--upper-class popular music--are considered the most compelling. That’s humanity.

Can you think of composers or lyricists today who are for the ages?

There are several very talented young people, but I’ll tell you this: The music that was written around the turn of the century and up until 1930 or 1940 was written for very good singers. And those singers were drawn from the operatic realm. Grand opera, which, through the years, has been the most successful surviving musical form, has thrived. And it has thrived, not from the new operas, but from revivals, revivals, revivals.

Those are the things people still go to. They want familiar music, and it’s hard to get familiar with music in the modern vein. Take the example of Menotti. When he started, he did some very melodic operas.

Which ones are you thinking of?

“The Medium,” “Ahmal and the Night Visitors,” the things that he did early. “The Consul” was kind of a turning point. Much of it was the old Menotti, some of it was the new. And when I saw “The Saint of Bleecker Street,” I got really angry, because I was a fan. A beautiful melody would start and, all at once, would turn, sharply, and become quite modern. I could almost think, with Menotti’s mind: “I sound like Puccini. I mustn’t sound like Puccini.”

Is it reasonable to expect that we can have harmony and romance in music today when the composers who create it live in such a turbulent and inharmonious world?

Part of it is fear--the fear of doing something that sounds old-fashioned. Being old-fashioned is not bad--if you’re old-fashioned good.

Have you seen “La Cage aux Folles”?

I’m going to and I expect to enjoy it thoroughly. Jerry Herman is one of the good young people who is capable of writing very beautiful melodies. He’s not a musician in the same category as Herbert, but he has a real melodic and romantic sense. The score of “La Cage” is something you enjoy as you listen to it, instead of having to remember what it was five minutes after you’ve heard it.

To what do you attribute the growth of Civic Light Opera under your tutelage?

A big element was luck. The music. Strong casts. Even when we were doing something relatively inexpensively, I had 28 musicians in the orchestra--that was important--and big choruses when we still couldn’t pay high salaries for the leading people, just because I wanted to hear good music well sung.

As I saw weaknesses in the books and the lyrics, I put small teams of writers and composers together. I was very fortunate. I enjoyed great friendships with (Sigmund) Romberg, Jerome Kern, (Rudolf) Friml.

Friml was a great character but very flexible--which is another measurement of good writers and composers. He was such a nut, but, in many ways, the greatest talent of them all. Brilliant pianist and a tremendous improvisator. As Rudolf Schirmer described it, melodies just fell out of his sleeves.

Even though I never regarded myself as a musician, I got along well with them--even Kern, who was a Tartar and sometimes wouldn’t budge or change a note. They were all great guys, people you could live with. Erich Korngold, perhaps the greatest musician I’ve had a close personal relationship with, had a great sense of humor and underlying warmth. Warmth. That was something I always fought for.

What did you think of Cole Porter?

He’s another one who was very flexible. Based on a combination of story, book and personality potential, I consider “Kiss Me Kate” one of the two best American musicals. The other is “Annie Get Your Gun.”

If your feelings are correct regarding the importance of musicality, where does that put the modern musical, which seems to be relying more and more on technical wizardry?

All the tricks in the world aren’t good enough unless there’s something else to give them substance. If you’re going to rely on the technical, go see a performance by a magician. It’ll be fun, but it won’t mean a thing.

What connection do you make between technical accomplishment, increased budgets and the high price of tickets?

If I answer that question honestly, I would say that, if the prices of tickets continue to increase, or even hold at the price they are now, when there is no inflation to excuse an increase, we’re in trouble.

Theater owners used to gamble with the producers. They were partners. The old terms on a musical show used to be 70% (of the gross) to the producer up to the first so-many-dollars, then 75%. The owners would also furnish certain things: They would share in the advertising, share on a certain number of musicians, provide a certain number of stagehands.

Not any more. They charge flat rentals so that, for the most part, they don’t care if a show is successful--except they prefer it because it provides the occupancy they need.

And yet the Shuberts co-produced “Cats” with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

It’s part of the same principle. The difference is this: If the show’s very good and they have great confidence in it, then it is to their advantage to help in the financing--or even to take it all on. But, when they do that, their partners--whoever they may take in on the financing--don’t share in the theater’s receipts. The percentage of the gross, which the theater owner used to have to depend on for his profit, is of no consequence.

Owners will make deals: 90% to the producer and 10% to the theater, but they’ll furnish nothing, or maybe just the box office (staff). So that the owners--and that’s confined really to the two major organizations (Shubert and Nederlander)--can hold out. But in order to get product under those conditions, they have to be prepared to make an investment in the show. So they make it, and, if it doesn’t pay off, they’ve still made a nice profit from the rental.

The habit of theatergoing families was only possible when prices were lower. Now people save up for one or two big shows a year. And the shows that get hurt are the ones in the middle, the ones that aren’t the blockbusters but might have enjoyed a run.

The mention of your name almost always elicits one of three rewarding statements: “He’s a real gentleman; you might not always have agreed with his taste, but you could always count on him to deliver; he always treated his audiences with respect.” How significant were these personal ethics in the development of your Civic Light Opera?

In all the years we operated--I’m very proud of this--we never had a single request for money back. I don’t think we ever lost subscribers because of the product. In doing four shows, we might have one that would be weak, but the other three would be good enough--and maybe one of them great--so the subscriber had a good run for his money.

I was finicky about production and insistent on my taste. My one asset was that, for the most part, it coincided with the public’s.

Would you recommend the same guidelines today if you were putting together a season?

No. We had to change with the times. Don’t forget that we were in operation quite a few years before the Rodgers and Hammerstein era. I didn’t do anything but operetta until 1940.

I think the first R&H; show that I played was the second company of “South Pacific.” By that time, we were taking New York shows and giving them very substantial guarantees, so we got the R&H; shows while they were still hot.

We had a tremendous advantage in Los Angeles: We grew with it. In time, it got so the cost of traveling became very high and the shows very expensive and ambitious--too big for short runs.

Is the short run unrealistic today when the Shuberts can offer nine-month runs or longer?

Yes, you can’t compete with that. One of the things I had suggested to Jimmy (Nederlander)--and I always thought his objection to it was a bit feeble--was to let a big, strong show play here first (at the Music Center) for a limited number of weeks and then move to the Pantages with its different audience, big capacity and potential for open-end runs.

The claim, with “La Cage,” was that it was too expensive to move.

I don’t believe that. Some of the figures they gave me were totally out of line with all common sense. Even losing a day or two of performance, I can’t conceive of any show, handled intelligently, moving from here to there in the same city for more than $100,000. And that’s peanuts given the show’s strength.

You told me once that, if you’d made any mistake at all, it was that you felt you’d retired a little too soon. Do you still think that?

Yes, I do. But I was 80 then and I had planned (my retirement) carefully since I was 75. My board didn’t want me to retire. There might have been a couple of members of the board who thought it was a good idea, on general principles, but, at 80, my own feeling was you never can tell.

Right now, I wouldn’t want to tackle the challenge. Too much water has gone over the dam. However, I would produce a show.

I feel almost as capable as I was.