Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 30, 2001Volume 30, Number 12



Baritone Richard Lalli and pianist Gary Chapman will perform music written by Nšel Coward at the opening of an exhibition of Coward's diaries at the Beinecke Library at 5:15 p.m. on Dec. 6.



Diary entries recall private life,
career of Nöel Coward

Excerpts from the private diaries of English playwright, actor and composer Nöel Coward (1899-1973) will be on display Dec. 6-21 at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Coward kept a diary for at least three decades. The earliest surviving volume is for the year 1940, when Coward was 41 years old and had already achieved acclaim as the author of many plays and musical comedies. The last entry in the final volume is dated Jan. 25, 1970, about three years before his death.

The author's diaries were published in 1982 in an edition by Graham Payn, Coward's interpreter and companion, and Sheridan Morley, his first biographer. However, there were many cuts, especially in the earlier volumes. The original diaries entered the Frederick R. Koch collection in 1984, and were made available to researchers for the first time at the Beinecke Library in January 2000.

The diaries document Coward's activities with the author's well-known acerbic wit. For example, on Aug. 14, 1947, he wrote about a clambake he attended on Martha's Vineyard: "Net result disappointing. Nothing was cooked enough and everything was full of sand. ... Finally we all came indoors and had some milk and angel cake, the lack of sand in which was somehow shocking."

Highlights from the Beinecke Library show include Coward's comments on his first appearance in Las Vegas in 1955, as well as his visit to New Haven for the opening of his play "Look after Lulu" at the Shubert Theater. In other entries, Coward describes the wedding of Princess Margaret in 1960; records the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whom he knew; and recounts the 1965 luncheon with the Queen Mother at his residence in Jamaica.

Coward's career on the stage began at age 12, when he made his acting debut. A year later, he won praise for his portrayal of Slightly in "Peter Pan." Over the next few years, he wrote and sometimes starred in his own dramatic works. His first play to be noticed by the critics was "The Vortex," a serious play about narcotics addiction.

In 1929, Coward starred in the Broadway production of his romantic musical "Bitter Sweet." The show included the popular song "I'll See You Again"; among Coward's other notable compositions are "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "I'll Follow My Secret Heart."

Over the next decade or so, Coward produced such notable plays as "Private Lives," "Cavalcade" and "Blithe Spirit." During World War II, Coward entertained troops on the major battlefronts and detailed his experiences in "Middle East Diary." In 1942, he wrote, codirected with David Lean, and acted in the motion picture "In Which We Serve," about life aboard a British naval destroyer. He continued his collaboration with Lean on the filming of his fantasy about spiritualism, "Blithe Spirit."

In his later years, Coward built a reputation as an entertainer and raconteur. In 1960 he gave what many have hailed as his finest performance as the secret agent in the Carol Reed-Graham Greene film "Our Man in Havana."

Coward also wrote two volumes of autobiographical reminiscences, "Present Indicative" and "Future Indefinite"; two collections of short stories, "To Step Aside" and "Star Quality"; and a novel, "Pomp and Circumstance," portraying life on a South Seas island. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1970.


Concert of Coward works

To formally mark the opening of "The Diaries of Noel Coward," there will be a concert of music by the composer at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 6, in the Beinecke Library, 121 Wall St. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature baritone Richard Lalli and pianist/arranger Gary Chapman.

Since they first teamed up in 1990, Lalli and Chapman have received acclaim for their unique approach to the performance of classic American songs. They have presented complete programs of works by such composers as Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, and Rodgers and Hart, and their concerts have also included works by other notable U.S. composers. In 1994, they unveiled a program at the National Gallery in Washington that combined popular songs with art songs by such Americans as Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter. The most recent of their four compact disc recordings accompanies the Yale University Press publication "Listening to Classic American Popular Songs" by eminent musical theorist Allen Forte of Yale.

The duo's repertoire is not limited to American popular music. In 1993, they presented a Noel Coward recital in London's Wigmore Hall, and in 1994 they returned there for a gala New Year's Eve recital.

Lalli is an associate professor in the Department of Music at Yale. He specializes in German song, and is particularly interested in music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He directs the Yale Collegium Musicum, an ensemble founded by Paul Hindemith in the 1940s. Chapman, who teaches at Connecticut College in New London, is a versatile performer in both the classical and jazz fields.


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Campus Notes



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