Ben Hecht Biography & Works 

                                                                                                               

Left, Boris Anisfeld's original sets for "The Love of Three Oranges" appeared in Vogue Magazine, November 15, 1921. Below see Herman Rosse's interpretation of Anisfeld's set to illustrate the story as it was compiled in Hecht's book, 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, published by Covici-McGee, 1922.

When Sergei Prokofiev arrived in Chicago to premiere his weird modernist opera, "The Love of Three Oranges" on New Years Eve, 1921, Ben Hecht was where the action was. In a behind the scenes story for the Chicago Daily News, he covered the chaotic last minute stage directing at the dress rehearsal.

Today's generations remember in childhood cutting their classical musical teeth on Prokofiev's leit-motif driven "Peter and the Wolf," whose hummable themes ring in our ears at the thought of adventuresome little boys, rapacious wolves, doomed ducks and grumpy old men. Out of the spotlight for decades, Prokofiev's works were invigorated in this new century in a musical week in New York. On hearing of this revival, we recalled Hecht's Prokofiev story of the holiday season eighty years ago.

In publishing the story, we break with our original objective to reprint only Hecht's uncollected stories. Hecht's Prokofiev story was reprinted in the 1922 book, "1001 Afternoons in Chicago." The book and later reprints, however, were never annotated as to historical or biographical context nor indexed as to subject matter, the gist of our work as Hecht specialists. In publishing it again, we celebrate an event of significance not only to musical history but to the history of modernism.

The story portends the long legacy of "Prokofiev's Chicago opera," as a familiar title. In barely an aside, and a disappointed one, Hecht clarifies Prokofiev's own self-definition as a classicist, while everyone else defined the cacophany of his music as modernistic, a bone musicologists have gnawed on for decades.

Boris Anisfeld's wildly colorful and looming sets inspired the title "Fantastic Lollypops" for the story. Anisfeld later enjoyed a long career at the Art Institute of Chicago, prospered as a painter, and resided in the now coveted Tree Studios. Soprano Mary Garden was a friend of Ben Hecht, but not of his first wife, Marie Armstrong, an entertainment journalist. The diva was the opera's director, the first woman to hold that job. The Auditorium venue of "The Love of Three Oranges" remains a Michigan Avenue landmark, designed by architect Louis Sullivan.

The bowing and hand-kissing and screaming attendant to dress reheasrsals of temperamental artists and impressarios is preserved for us in detail. We bow to Hecht for preserving these moments in the history of the musical stage. Enjoy! Enjoy!

Florice Whyte Kovan. 

And there is M. Jacques Coini.  He will not participate in the world premier.  Except in spirit.  Now M. Coini is present in the flesh.  He wears a business suit, spats of tan and a gray fedora.  M. Coini is the stage director.  He instructs the actors how to act.  He tells the choruses where to chorus and what to do with their hands, masks, feet, voices, eyes and noses.

The hobgoblin extravaganza Mr. Prokofiev wrote unfolds itself with rapidity.  Theater habitu?s eavesdropping on the rehearsal mumble in the half-dark that there was never anything like this seen on earth or in heaven.  Mr. Anisfeld's scenery explodes like a succession of medieval skyrockets.  A phantasmagoria of sound, color and action crowds the startled proscenium.  For there is no question but that the proscenium, with the names of Verdi, Bach, Haydn and Beethoven chiseled on it, is considerably startled.

Through this business of skyrockets and crescendos and hobgoblins M. Coini stands out like a lighthouse in a cubist storm.  However bewildering the plot, however humpty-dumpty the music, M. Coini is intelligible drama.  His brisk little figure in its pressed pants, spats and fedora, bounces around amid the apoplectic disturbances like some busybody Alice in an operatic Wonderland.

The Opus mounts.  The music mounts.  Singers attired as singers were never attired before crawl on, bounce on, tumble on.  And M. Coini, as undisturbed as a traffic cop or a Loop pigeon, commands his stage.  He tells the singers where to stand while they sing, and when they don't sing to suit him he sings himself.  He leads the chorus on and tells it where to dance, and when they don't dance to suit him he dances himself. He moves the scenery himself. He fights with Mr. Prokofiev while the music splashes and roars around him.  He fights with Boris.  He fights with electricians and wigmakers.

It is admirable. M. Coini, in his tan spats and gray fedora, is more fantastic than the entire cast of devils and Christmas trees and lollypops, who seem to be the leading actors in the play. Mr. Prokofiev and Miss Garden have made a mistake.  They should have let M. Coini play "The Love for Three Oranges" all by himself.  They should have let him be the dream towers and the weird chorus, the enchantress and the melancholy prince. M. Coini is the greatest opera I have ever seen.  All he needed was M. Prokofiev's music and the superbly childish visions of the medieval Boris for a background.

The music leaps into a gaudy balloon and sails away in marvelous zigzags, way over the heads of the hobgoblins on the stage and the music critics off the stage.  Miss Garden beckons with her shillalah.  Mr. Prokofiev arrives panting at her side. He bows, kisses the back of her hand and stands at attention.  Also the medieval face of Mr. Anisfeld drifts gently through the gloom and joins the two.

The first act of "The Oranges" is over.  Two critics exchanging opinions glower at Mr. Prokofiev.  One says: "What a shame! What a shame! Nobody will understand it."  The other agrees.  But perhaps they only mean that music critics will fail to understand it and that untutored ones like ourselves will find in the hurdy-gurdy rhythms and contortions of Mr. Prokofiev and Mr. Anisfeld a strange delight.  As if some one had given us a musical lollypop to suck and rub in our hair.

I have an interview with Mr. Prokofiev to add. The interview came first and doesn't sit well at the end of these notes. Because Mr. Prokofiev, sighing a bit nervously in expectation of the world's premier, said: "I am a classicist.  I derive from the classical composers."

This may be true, but the critics will question it. Instead of quoting Mr. Prokofiev at this time, it may be more apropos merely to say that I would rather see and listen to his opera than to the entire repertoire of the company put together.  This is not criticism, but a prejudice in favor of fantastic lollypops.

                    Happy 2009!

See our calendar of Ben Hecht's stories, day by day.  Start at our Home Page.