Postwar modernity and the wife's subjectivity: Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti

American Music

Volumn 23, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 220-256

  Keathley, Elizabeth L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 62749140803     PISSN: 07344392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4153033     Document Type: Review

References (65)

1. This claim was part of Walt Disney's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, October 24, 1947. Thomas M. Leonard, Day by Day: The Forties (New York: Facts on File, 1977). Facts in this reference source are organized by date; subsequent references will cite only the date.
2. The communist purge of Hollywood appears to have begun with the HUAC investigations (June 30, 1945), and to have been fueled to a substantial degree by the desires of studio owners and executives, for example, Walt Disney, Jack Warner, Sam Wood, and Louis B. Mayer, to rid themselves of the constraints of powerful writers' and actors' unions (September 20 and October 20, 1947).
3. The "Hollywood Ten" refused to testify before HUAC in October and November of 1947. The U. S. Motion Picture Association announced that they would be fired on November 25, 1947, and they were indicted for contempt by a federal grand jury on December 5, 1947. That same year, Harms Eisler had been deported for his communist sympathies. See Joan Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography, rev. and updated (New York: Billboard Books, 1998).
4. The Screen Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild eventually cooperated with the push to remove communists from their ranks, the SAG finally requiring loyalty oaths (January 14-15, 1948). It is difficult to assess how much of this compliance was a result of intimidation and fear and how much was motivated by the genuine reservations many American liberals had about what they perceived as totalitarian aspects of Soviet communism. See Ronald Radosh, "The Legacy of the Anti-Communist Liberal Intellectuals," Partisan Review 67, no. 4 (April 2000). Available online: (accessed Nov. 10, 2000).
5. In addition to targeting the film industry, J. Edgar Hoover set his sights on a number of other cultural institutions, such as newspapers, books, radio, some churches, schools, colleges, and fraternal orders (September 30, 1946). The extent to which HUAC was seen as a patriotic institution is suggested by the fact that protests against its violations of personal freedom were broken up by angry war veterans (November 1, 1947).
6. Letter to Shirley Bernstein dated May 16, [1951], held in the Leonard Bernstein collection of the Library of Congress. This and following letters available online: .
7. Maltz was one of the original Hollywood Ten. Garfield had appeared in Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty, among other leftist vehicles, and died of a heart attack in 1952 after years of uncertain work and continuous FBI surveillance. Spartacus Education, U. K. , available online: http://www. spartacus. schoolnet. co. uk/USAgarfieldJ2. htm. Rossen had been blacklisted after refusing to testify before the committee, but returned to the United States in 1953, admitted his membership in the Communist Party, and named others. Dmytryk was one of the original Ten, but returned to the committee as a "friendly" witness in 1951, apparently the ghoulishness to which Bernstein refers.
8. Letter to Shirley Bernstein dated May 16, [1951].
9. Letter to Helen Coates dated April 30, 1951. Bernstein concludes this paragraph, "Oh, where is FDR?"
10. American Business Consultants, Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (New York: Counterattack, The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism, 1950), 16-17.
11. Red Channels was a pamphlet distributed free to those in a position to hire those in the entertainment industry, as a sort of updating of the blacklist-entertainment figures who were not called before the committee in the first round of testimony. It was compiled by TV producer Victor Harnett and former FBI agent Theodore Kirkpatrick from FBI files, the right-wing journal Counterattack, and The Daily Worker.
12. The 151 listings included not only Bernstein, but also Blitzstein, Copland, Pete Seeger, and Piedmont blues singer Josh White (Paul Robeson had been blacklisted during the first round of testimony). The affiliations listed under Bernstein's entry include the National Negro Congress, a petition protesting the deportation of Hanns Eisler, The Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace, and People's Songs, Inc. See SpartacusEducation. com for a description, and AuthenticHistory. com for photos of selected pages: ; .
13. See Peyser, Bernstein, 244, for one account of Bernstein's 1956 questioning.
14. The groups deemed subversive included the Congress of American Women (HUAC, October 22, 1949) and the Women's International Democratic Federation, a UN consultative body (Senate Judiciary Committee, May 10, 1949). The Senate voted to fund an investigation of "homosexuals and other moral perverts" (May 24,1950), and, according to a State Department report, 425 employees were dismissed for their "homosexual proclivities" between 1947 and 1953 (April 12, 1953).
15. The McCarran Act instituted the Subversive Activities Control Board. The intensification of communist purges in 1950 coincided with U. S. entry into the Korean war (1950-53), officially and popularly construed as a war against communist aggression, although there are other interpretations. (See, e. g. , I. F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War [New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969; c. 1952]. )
16. An increase on attacks against Jews in the United States was reported in 1951 (December 10, 1951).
17. Although there remains some question as to whether Julius Rosenberg spied for the Soviet Union, the lack of due process during the trial and appeal process, the prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, perjured testimony, unduly harsh and probably illegal sentencing, and the unprecedented speed of the execution demonstrate that the Rosenbergs were treated with considerable prejudice. They remain the only Americans to have been executed for spying against the United States, despite the demonstrable damage by latter-day (gentile) double-agents Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, and they are featured on the anti-Semitic website "Jewwatch. com. " For documents from the Rosenberg trial, see the "Famous Trials" website of Professor Douglas Linder of the Law School of the University of Missouri, Kansas City: (accessed Jan. 19, 2004).
18. For a critique of the trial, see the website of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case: (accessed Jan. 19, 2004).
19. For critiques of more recent evidence (the declassified "Venona cables" and testimony of former KGB agent Alexander Feklisov), see Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir, "Cables Coming in from the Cold," The Nation (July 5, 1999), available at (accessed Jan. 19, 2004),
20. and Walter Schneir, "Tales from the KGB," The Nation (April 7, 1997): 5-6.
21. For a compelling assessment of the construction of gender and concepts of family during the postwar era, see Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
22. Coontz points out, for example, that, although postwar America attempted to emulate Victorian families, the emphasis on female sexiness created contradictions: it is difficult to play simultaneously the roles of Angel in the House and sex kitten. On the notion of tradition as something that is invented, see Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O. Ranger, eds. , The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
23. Peyser is clearly critical of what she seems to regard as the insincerity or at least inconsistency of Bernstein's politics. See, for example, her account of Bernstein and racial equality in chapter 31, 411-20. Humphrey Burton, who knew Bernstein personally and was involved in a number of his productions, seems more conflicted, sometimes seeming to portray Bernstein as a good liberal, other times downplaying Bernstein's connections to radical politics, appearing to rationalize them to seem more "mainstream. " Humphrey Burton, Leonard Bernstein (New York: Doubleday, 1994). See, for example, his account of Bernstein's investigation in connection with the NBC Symphony of the Air (254), or his account of the "radical chic" incident (398ff. ).
24. I take the terms "cultural front" and "structures of feeling" from Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (New York: Verso, 1996).
25. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963; rpt. , New York: Dell, 1964).
26. Friedan's research included interviews with individual women and readings of a variety of texts, including women's magazine fiction, textbooks, and cinema. More recently, The Feminine Mystique has been challenged by some feminist scholars who have argued that Friedan's samples of women's literature and choice of interview subjects were not representative, and that Friedan herself reproduced the racist and heterosexist presumptions of the Cold War period. See Joanne Meyerowitz, "Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958," in Not June Cleaver: Women and Garder in Postwar America, 1945-1960, ed. Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 229-62.
27. Also valuable for understanding how ideologies and policies affected women, and how some women resisted them, is Brett Harvey, The Fifties: A Women's Oral History (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
28. See Coontz, The Way We Never Were. Not incidentally, the postwar period saw the origin of breast augmentation surgery and estrogen replacement therapy: Robert Wilson's now notorious Feminine Forever (New York: Evans, 1966) is only the most conspicuous example of selling to women postwar ideals of femininity along with new medical technologies.
29. The "New Look," a style introduced by Christian Dior in 1947, used many more yards of fabric than clothing of earlier decades and featured a "feminine" pinched waistline and a full skirt. These skirts were supported by stiff petticoats, analogous to Victorian crinolines. See Pauline Weston, "1950's Glamour" (n. d. ) on the Fashion-Era. com web site: (accessed March 18, 2003).
30. Transcript of the "Kitchen Debate," a public discussion between Nixon and Khrushchev at a model home in the American National Exhibit in Moscow, July 24, 1959, available online: (accessed Jan. 19, 2004).
31. Most of the text of the debate also appears in "The Two Worlds- A Day Long Debate," New York Times, July 25, 1959, 1, 3.
32. The relationship to leisure and beauty was emphasized in the Times article by noting Nixon's admiration of some swimsuit models immediately before his remark to Khrushchev that, with the automatic sweeper in the display, "you don't need a wife. " Other American periodicals contrasted the image of leisured and well-groomed American housewives to "bedraggled" Soviet women. See Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York: Viking, 2000), 10-11.
33. Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 53-54.
34. Following the UN convention on women's rights, the 1950s saw women's first participation in electoral politics in El Salvador (February 2, 1950), Peru (October 28, 1954), Honduras (January 24, 1955), Mexico July 4, 1955), Tunisia (May 5, 1957), Iraq (March 26, 1958), and Nepal (February 18, 1959); and laws granting women legal and property rights on a par with men were enacted in Cuba (December 12,1950) and Spain (April 17, 1958). Significant holdouts in this movement toward women's equality were Egypt, where the Grand Mufti condemned women's agitation for suffrage as contrary to Islamic law (May 2, 1952), Switzerland, whose male voters rejected a referendum to allow women to vote and hold office (January 31, 1959), and the United States, whose Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, announced to the Senate that the Eisenhower administration would ratify neither the UN convention on equal rights for women (already ratified by eighteen nations, including Russia, France, and Yugoslavia), nor the UN Human Rights Covenant (April 6, 1953).
35. Friedan, "The Problem That Has No Name," 11-27.
36. As Bernstein indicates in the production notes, "Much depends on precise and imaginative lighting. . . . The piece should move swiftly, avoiding any pause for set changes. " Leonard Bernstein, Trouble in Tahiti: An Opera in Seven Scenes © Copyright 1953 by Amberson Holdings LLC. Copyright renewed, Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher. Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. , Sole Agent. Reprinted by permission. All text and music quoted refer to the piano-vocal score (New York: G. Schirmer, 1953).
37. Trouble in Tahiti, rehearsal no. 17 of scene 1.
38. The last words Sam utters before the interlude are "I'm late for my train," and one available video production depicts Sam traveling in the train during the interlude. Leonard Bernstein, Trouble in Tahiti, videorecording (Kultur, 1992). Recorded in 1973; produced in association with London Weekend Television. Dinah: Nancy Williams; Sam: Julian Patrick. Trio: Antonia Butler, Michael Clark, and Mike Brown. Columbia Wind Ensemble, Leonard Bernstein conducting.
39. "Notes on Production," Trouble in Tahiti.
40. Trouble in Tahiti's everydayness, including its theme of a troubled marriage, clearly had precedents in the Zeitopern of the interwar period. On this subject, see Susan Cook, Opera for a New Republic: The Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill, and Hindemith (Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Research Press, 1988).
41. The intervallic similarity was also noted by Jack Gottlieb in The Music of Leonard Bernstein: A Study of Melodic Manipulations, DMA diss. , University of Illinois, 1964, 41, although he does not attribute ironic significance to it.
42. How vernacular music with African American origins comes to signify unmarked "American-ness" is a problem, but one beyond the scope of the present argument. Jazz style in West Side Story works much the same way vis-à-vis the ethnically marked "Latin" music of the Puerto Ricans.
43. Trouble in Tahiti, scene 6, rehearsal 10-12. Words in italics are Bernstein's musical or stage directions.
44. The James A. Michener book Tales from the South Pacific (1947) preceded Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, and the stage production was followed by a film version in 1958.
45. The white man in uniform/native girl trope is, of course, familiar to us from a number of operas, including Carmen, Madama Butterfly, and Lahné.
46. Letter to Shirley Bernstein dated April 26, 1950. Leonard reports that Male and Female is "more than fascinating. " Much of the eight pages of this letter, handwritten from Israel, are devoted to sorting through his feelings about Felicia, compared to whom "other girls (and/or boys) meant nothing," which suggests that Bernstein may have turned to Mead to try to understand his sexuality.
47. But compare Hitchcock's film Spellbound (1945) with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, where the genders of psychiatrist and patient are reversed, but the script of heterosexual romance remains in force.
48. Geoffrey Block, Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim (New York: Oxford, 1997), 137.
49. Humphrey Burton and Burton Bernstein also note the family names, and Humphrey Burton further subscribes to Peyser's revenge theory. Burton Bernstein, Family Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids (New York: Summit Books, 1982), 79;
50. Burton, Leonard Bernstein, 223.
51. Grace B. Jackson, "Trouble in Tahiti," Opera News 17 (Oct. 27, 1952): 13;
52. John Allison, "Opera around the World: Melbourne and Sydney," Opera 50, no. 2 (February 1999): 198-200;
53. Michael Denning, The Cultural Front; The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (New York: Verso, 1997), xviii-xix. "Cultural apparatus" is a term Denning takes from the radical social theorist C. Wright Mills.
54. Denning, Cultural Front, 58-62.
55. Leonard Bernstein, "The Absorption of Race Elements in American Music," bachelor's thesis, Harvard University, 1939;
56. reprinted in Leonard Bernstein, Findings: Fifty Years of Meditations on Music (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 39,40. This concern for ethnic specificity might provide us with another clue that the couple of Trouble in Tahiti represents the dominant culture rather than Bernstein's family members, for some of the suburbs mentioned (like Wellesley Hills) were "restricted" (from entry by Jews) during Bernstein's youth.
57. In 1932 Blitzstein wrote a play on Sacco and Vanzetti's execution, Condemned.
58. Letter to Helen Coates dated January 6, 1951. He proposes an opening convocation "with a very distinguished speaker "who will talk on . . . The Arts and Society in America today. Someone like [prominent left-wing writer Archibald] Macleish. "
59. Leonard Burkat, "Current Chronicle: Boston," Musical Quarterly (1953): 94-98.
60. Leonard Bernstein, "Prelude to a Musical Adaptation," New York Times, Oct. 30, 1949, copyright © 1949 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.
61. Also reprinted as "Prelude to an Opening," liner notes of Marc Blitzstein, Regina, New York City Opera production (Columbia Masterworks recording, © 1953).
62. Bernstein, Family Matters, 131.
63. Meryle Secrest also ascribes importance to Bernstein's mother's labor background in her biography, Leonard Bernstein: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
64. "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" from the musical Pins and Needles by Harold Rome © 1938 (Renewed) Florence Music Co. Inc. All rights administered by Chappell & Co. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U. S. Inc. , Miami, Florida 33014. Also reprinted in Denning, Cultural Front, 304-5.
65. "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man" by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green © 1953 (Renewed) Chappell & Co. , Inc. and Universal-Songs of Polygram International Inc. All rights administered by Chappell & Co. , Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U. S. Inc. , Miami, Florida 33014.