‘The Saga of Lenny’: Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Weill's Lady in the Dark

Abstract

Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti created a stepping stone towards his own brand of serious but accessible music theater. While he dedicated the opera in seven scenes to Marc Blitzstein, that path was paved by the formal innovations of Kurt Weill. A comparative analysis of Trouble in Tahiti with Lady in the Dark reveals that Bernstein derived essential impulses from Weill's musical play, although the few statements he made about his music indicate ambivalence and competition, particularly with regard to Weill's American works. As Bernstein's female protagonist, Dinah, struggles to define herself vis-à-vis the institution of marriage, the themes of psychoanalysis, Hollywood glamour and the use of song as a meta-dramatic topic emerge as common threads. Select harmonies, instrumentation and rhythmic devices further evince debts to the precursor of Weill. But while Liza of Lady in the Dark finds her musical cure, Dinah does not meet with personal fulfilment.