Music Man's Lady

At a high point in The Music Man at Broadway's Majestic Theater, the melody of Till There Was You climbs and blazes in a crescendo of awakening love between Bert Parks and his shy sweetheart. The baton in the orchestra pit below is not wielded by the usual bald male conductor, but by a very pretty young lady who might have just defected from the chorus onstage. With striking Titian-red hair, plus face and figure to match, Liza Redfield has the looks for anything except what she is: Broadway's first fulltime woman conductor.

Liza's feminine victory sets quite a precedent for U.S. musical theater. Women of the class and quality of France's austere Nadia Boulanger have guest-conducted the Boston Symphony and other orchestras; in a less memorable tradition there have always been all-girl dance bands. But conducting Broadway musicals has always been a man's job. Producers argue that women cannot command a male theater orchestra in day-in, day-out performances. Besides, if the girl conductor is good-looking, who wants to watch the show? Liza Redfield finally broke the monopoly by insisting that "music is neither masculine nor feminine. You don't have to be one of the boys to be a good conductor." For four years, she rapped steadily at Broadway's door until Music Man's Co-Producers Herb Greene, who also doubled as the show's original conductor, and Kermit Bloomgarden gave way.

Daughter of a Philadelphia textile worker, Liza started out as a piano prodigy, had her first public concert at the age of eight. One day five years ago, some friends asked her to play at a recording session for a short-lived musical called The Amazing Adele. ''There was a 14-piece orchestra and no one to conduct it. I suddenly found myself playing the piano and conducting the orchestra, and I loved it." For the next year she studied under Vladimir Brailowsky, then made the rounds of the summer tent musicals, absorbing both the inevitable gags ("Gee," cracked one cigar-puffing cellist, "you're the first longhair I ever enjoyed working for") and the experience. In three years she handled 20 scores, from Me and Juliet to The King and I.

Last year she went off-Broadway to conduct a pair of musicals, and finally got her break two months ago when Conductor-Producer Greene decided to step down from Music Man's podium. So far, not a peep of complaint has been heard from her 24-piece orchestra. "You know," said one musician, "this is the first time I ever watched a conductor."

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