Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II Biography

Rodgers and Hammerstein Biography

In the early 1920's, Richard Rodgers, born in 1902, was a relatively well-known composer, working with such men as lyricist Lorenz Hart on witty musicals intended to make light of serious issues. During the same period, Oscar Hammerstein II, born in 1895, was completing somewhat popular works using the operetta form. His most famous collaborations (pre-Rodgers) include Rudolf Friml, Vincent Youmans, and Sigmund Romberg. These collaborations resulted in The Desert Song, Rose-Marie, and The New Moon, all operettas. Hammerstein also wrote Show Boat in 1927 with Jerome Kern, which proceeded to change musical theater for good. His last musical collaboration, before beginning an exclusive collaborative relationship with Richard Rodgers, was the 1943 version of Bizet's tragic opera, Carmen - he entitled it Carmen Jones. After long and highly distinguished careers with other collaborators, Richard Rodgers (composer) and Oscar Hammerstein II (librettist/lyricist) joined forces to create the most consistently fruitful and successful partnership in the American musical theatre.

Richard Rodgers

Rodgers and Hammerstein first got together to create the first musical in a currently deeply-explored genre, the musical play. The called it Oklahoma, and in it, fused Rodgers' musical comedy with Hammerstein's operatic background. Who knew that this collaboration would signify the first in a long stream of musicals, resulting in over forty shows and film scores, including On Your Toes, Babes In Arms, The Boys From Syracuse, I Married An Angel, and Pal Joey.

Oklahoma was soon followed by Carousel, and then Allegro, South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music, and Pipe Dream. In addition to these Broadway musicals, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a musical specifically for film, entitled State Fair, and another specifically for television, entitled Cinderella. Although many of their Broadway musicals ended up on either the film screen or the television screen (winning them a total of fourteen Academy Awards), they only wrote those two specifically for either of those mediums. Their most successful film was The Sound of Music, in 1965, which won Best Picture and is considered to be one of the most popular musical films ever made. After Hammerstein died in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the stage, his first solo piece called No Strings. However, although a few of his solo works were well-regarded, after his death in 1979, he has not been known as much for these as he has for his collaborations with Hammerstein. This collaboration signified the most long-standing, influential collaboration in Broadway history, and has not been paralleled since.

South Pacific