Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein, born Marcus Samuel Blitzstein in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1905, was an American composer, lyricist, librettist, and book writer whose work spanned Broadway, opera, radio, and film. He died on January 22, 1964, at the age of 58, during a visit to Martinique, where he was murdered by three sailors he had picked up in a bar.

Blitzstein demonstrated exceptional musical ability from childhood, performing a Mozart piano concerto at age seven. He studied piano with Alexander Siloti, a pupil of both Tchaikovsky and Liszt, and at twenty-one made his professional concerto debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra performing Liszt's Piano Concerto. He pursued composition studies at the Curtis Institute of Music before traveling to Europe, where he studied in Berlin under Arnold Schoenberg and in Paris under Nadia Boulanger. His early compositions, including the Piano Sonata of 1927 and the Piano Concerto of 1931, reflected the influence of Boulanger and American modernism, which he described as "wild, dissonant and percussive." Upon returning to New York, he became connected to the Composers Collective, whose members included Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler and whose political leanings were decidedly left-wing.

Blitzstein's first marriage was to novelist Eva Goldbeck on March 2, 1933. Her mother was Berlin-born opera singer and musical star Lina Abarbanell. Goldbeck died of anorexia in 1936, and her death drove Blitzstein to channel his grief into the creation of The Cradle Will Rock. Blitzstein was openly gay; his first lover had been conductor Alexander Smallens, with whom he traveled to Europe in 1924.

The pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock brought Blitzstein national recognition in 1937. The Works Progress Administration, which had originally funded the production under the direction of Orson Welles, shut it down and locked the cast out of the Maxine Elliott Theatre. The cast, musicians, and audience walked together to the nearby Venice Theater, where the work was performed concert-style on June 16, 1937, without costumes or sets. Actors and musicians sat among the audience to evade union restrictions, while Blitzstein narrated from the piano. For The Cradle Will Rock, Blitzstein served as composer, lyricist, bookwriter, director, pianist, and actor, playing the roles of Clerk, First Reporter, and Professor Mamie. In 1939, Leonard Bernstein led a revival of the work at Harvard, narrating from the piano as Blitzstein had done; Blitzstein attended the performance, and the two became close friends. Bernstein later described Blitzstein's contribution to American musical theatre as "incalculable." The 1999 film Cradle Will Rock drew on these events, with Hank Azaria portraying Blitzstein.

Also in 1937, Blitzstein contributed as a bookwriter to the revue Pins and Needles and composed incidental music for a revival of Caesar. The following year he composed incidental music for a revival of Danton's Death. His opera Regina, which premiered in 1949, was an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes, for which Blitzstein served as composer, orchestrator, and librettist. His Broadway musical Juno, which opened in 1959, was based on Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock, with Blitzstein serving as composer, lyricist, and co-orchestrator. In 1960, he contributed two songs — "French Lessons in Songs" and "Bernier Day" — to the original Broadway production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.

Beyond Broadway, Blitzstein's output included the off-Broadway translation and adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, for which he edited the book and lyrics into English for a 1954 revival. He also completed translations and adaptations of Brecht and Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, the latter with music by Paul Dessau. His other major compositions include the radio song play I've Got the Tune, the opera No for an Answer, The Airborne Symphony of 1946, and the opera Reuben, Reuben of 1955. He composed film scores as well, including Surf and Seaweed in 1931 and The Spanish Earth in 1937, the latter co-composed with Virgil Thomson.

At the time of his death, Blitzstein was working on Idiots First, a one-act opera based on a story by Bernard Malamud, intended as part of a collection called Tales of Malamud. He had also been commissioned by the Ford Foundation to compose a three-act opera, Sacco and Vanzetti, which had been optioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Both works were completed posthumously by composer Leonard Lehrman with the approval of Blitzstein's estate. Lehrman also authored Marc Blitzstein: A Bio-Bibliography, published in 2005 by Praeger, a volume of 645 pages described as the longest published biographical bibliography of any American composer.

During World War II, Blitzstein served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army attached to the Office of War Information. In 1958, he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In a closed session, he acknowledged his membership in the Communist Party, which had ended in 1949, and refused to name names or cooperate further. He was recalled for a public session but was not ultimately called to testify. Blitzstein is buried at Chelten Hills Cemetery in Philadelphia.