New Play in Manhattan

Music in the Air (words & music by Oscar Hammerstein II & Jerome Kern; Peggy Fears, producer). In collaboration for the first time since they wrote historic Showboat, the team of Hammerstein & Kern has contrived an exquisite frieze of melody against the background of Bavaria, that good clean land with a song in its throat. The tale Librettist Hammerstein has to tell variously interrupts or suddenly pounces upon or absentmindedly neglects the tunes which flow continuously from Composer Kern's brimming music box. Neither operetta, musicomedy nor revue, Music in the Air is billed simply as "a musical adventure." Scenes are labeled Leit Motif, Etudes, Pastoral, Impromptu, Sonata.

By far the best section of Act I is "Impromptu" laid in the music publishing office of Ernst Weber at Munich. To it come apple-cheeked Dr. Lessing (Al Shean), his pretty, wide-eyed daughter Sieglinde (Katherine Carrington of Face the Music) and her rustic boy friend Karl (Walter Slezak). These bucolics have arrived in town with the walking club from the mountain village of Edendorf where everyone seems to have been born with a pitchpipe in his mouth. Unhappily for them, the rural lovers meet a playwright and his man-killing mistress, an opera star, impersonated with gusto by beauteous Natalie Hall. The star goes for Karl. The playwright goes for Sieglinde. With their attentions fast on their new inamoratas, the professional couple toss each other about, stand on chairs and pianos, recline on couches while giving an impromptu rehearsal of their new vehicle.

"Sonata,"' best scene in Act II. is laid in the Munich Tierpark, a charming scene by Joseph Urban complete with the blue & white chevronings of Bavaria, caged ! parrots, romping children, elephants, a performing bear and good pastry. Still ; bent on their new amorous guests, the ! playwright tries to sing "One More Dance" to bewildered Sieglinde while his mistress out-howls him with "Night Flies By." for the benefit of timid Karl. Upshot of this sequence: The playwright puts Sieglinde in his new play, the mistress carries Karl off to Berlin. With much sympathy and good humor, Messrs Hammerstein & Kern unravel their amatory knots to everyone's satisfaction, send their audience home with a sense of benign gratification. Best tunes: naive 'I've Told Every Little Star." lilting 'Night Flies By," nostalgic "Egern on the Tegern See."

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