The musical "My Fair Lady": content, interesting facts, videos, history

The musical "My Fair Lady"

The musical “My Fair Lady” by Frederick Lowe and Alan Jay Lerner is a romantic story about the transformation of a simple flower girl into a sophisticated and graceful lady who captured the hearts of many viewers around the world. The uniqueness of the musical lies in the combination of various musical material: from sentimental waltz before the Spanish hot.

Summary

Secular people gather in a square near the famous Royal Theater in London. Eliza’s flower girl is sitting on the steps, her goods are inadvertently touched by the noble young man Freddie Ainsford Hill, the flowers crumble and fall. Despite the apologies of the elegant gentleman, the flower girl expresses her indignation in a very rough way. She demands that Freddie pay damages. A crowd of onlookers is quickly being created around, who are interested, on the occasion of which all the fuss has happened. Someone notices that one person literally records the speech of a girl, many assume that this is a police officer who wants to arrest Eliza for her boorish behavior. It turns out that this is a famous professor who studies phonetics. He was interested in the pronunciation of Eliza, which was clearly far from perfect. Arguing that there are no people among the English who know their native language, he, for the sake of public recognition, easily determines the place of residence of each of the interlocutors. So he meets with the military Pickering. Higgins decided to brag to a new acquaintance and casually suggested the flower girl to teach her perfectly to speak English for half a year, because literate speech is the way to the bright future of the girl.

The next day, the flower girl Eliza comes to Higgins, she is ready to take lessons from him, because she wants to work in a more paid flower shop. In the beginning, Higgins laughs at a girl who already wants to leave, but Pickering offers to bet. Under the terms of the transaction, Professor Higgins should teach her to speak correctly so that no one from secular society can recognize her as a simpleton. Pickering promises to pay all maintenance costs. This arrangement suits the professor, and he orders the maid Pierce to take care of Miss Doolittle. Pickering and Higgins discuss life, and the professor expresses his own opinion about marriage and women: he is not going to marry, and believes that women are only capable of creating disorder.

Eliza's father, the scavenger Alfred Doolittle, hears the news that his daughter has moved in to live with Professor Higgins. Meanwhile, the girl diligently tries to learn the pronunciation of sounds, but studying is hard for her. Dolittle comes to Higgins and wants to get a cash reward for her. He presents his philosophy of life, which seems very original to Higgins. The professor not only gives him money, but also advises Doolittle to the American millionaire as a brilliant speaker.

All day Eliza studied, but to no avail. The professor decides that once swearing and reproaches do not help in training, then you need to change tactics. After a sweet conversation, the girl finally realizes that she was doing the wrong and immaculately reading the verse "Togo and wait for the rains in Spain." Inspired by Eliza sings the song "I want to dance."

The day has come when Miss Doolittle should appear in high society at the hippodrome. In the beginning, everything is as good as possible, but Eliza, in a fit of happiness, begins to tell life stories, adding vernacular to them. By this, she captivated the heart of Freddie Ainsford Hill. Frustrated, Eliza returns to Higgins, everyone understands that more work is needed on what to say. Freddie sings a song about the feelings he experiences, but Dolittle is so sad that he doesn't want to go out.

A month and a half has passed, and it is time for another final test. At the ball, Eliza was on top. No one, not even Professor Karpati, could recognize a girl in the girl, moreover, the society recognized her as a real princess. Higgins accepts congratulations on the success of the experiment, but nobody cares about Eliza’s fate. Offended and distressed, she collects things and leaves.

Miss Doolittle returns to her home district, where no one will recognize her. Father got rich thanks to the recommendation of Higgins and now wants to marry. Professor and Pickering are very saddened that Eliza is gone, they want to find her.

Eliza meets with the professor by chance. He admits that everything has changed without her, and asks her to return. Doolittle does not want to listen to him, she says that all doors are open to her.

Upon returning home, the professor listened to the records of Eliza’s voice for a long time. Miss Doolittle enters the room, quietly turning off the phonograph. Higgins, seeing her, does not hide the joy.

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Interesting Facts

• Initially, the musical should be called "My beautiful Eliza", but later the name was changed to "My beautiful lady."
• The screen version of 1964 won the Oscar.
• Lerner and Low worked together for a long time, creating musicals for Broadway. The first truly successful work was the California Gold musical.
• In all, the Broadway Theater performance was staged 2,717 times.

• “My Fair Lady” was not only nominated, but also won the Tony Music Award.
• The plot of the play "Pygmalion", which is the basis for creating a musical, was greatly changed during the work. So, in the original source, Eliza marries Freddie and opens not a flower shop, but a vegetable one, as a symbol of disbelief in true love.
• In the film version, the role of Eliza was given to the already famous Audrey Hepburn, many connoisseurs of the musical were upset because they wanted to see Julia Andrews in her place, who was a permanent performer on Broadway.
• Famous composers refused to producer Gabriel Pascal, because they did not believe in the success of the project.

History of creation

The idea to create from George Bernard Shaw's most famous and popular play at that time is a musical performance entirely owned by Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal. In 1930, he acquired the rights to some works of the famous playwright, including the Pygmalion. In 1938, he was able to film theatrical version of the play. For a long time, Pascal was looking for a composer who would decide to compose a musical based on a script. The work was offered to such eminent artists as Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Mennothy, Betty Comden and Adolf Green. But only composer Frederick Lowe and librettist Alan J. Lerner decided to show courage and write a musical that has not been removed from the repertoire of the Broadway Theater for more than half a century.

The first dress rehearsal was held at the Schubert Theater in New Haven. The main roles were assigned to Julia Andrews and Rex Harrison.

March 15, 1956 held a deafening premiere of the performance at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York. Then it was staged at Broadway, which lasted for 6 years, and then was resumed again.

In 1964, came the screen version of the musical. The role of Eliza Doolittle was given to Audrey Hepburn, the replacement of Rex Harrison could not be found, since no one could better cope with the role of Professor Higgins. In the same year, the film received an Oscar.

In 1960, this musical performance was staged in the Soviet Union, the show was held in three cities: in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev. The audience was delighted with what they saw, and the songs quickly became popular and recognizable.

The musical "My Fair Lady" is a multi-faceted musical performance. It strikes to the depths of the soul with its simplicity and naivety and at the same time surprises with its brilliance and luxury. Seeing and hearing this musical creation once, the viewer will forever remember his bizarre melodies and vivid surroundings.