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Latest News: Leonard Bernstein Biographical Film Maestro Now Streaming on Netflix
The highly anticipated film Maestro, now available for streaming on Netflix, stars Bradley Cooper as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, alongside Carey Mulligan as his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Directed by Cooper and produced by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, the film explores both Bernstein’s groundbreaking career and his complex marriage. Despite its acclaim, Maestro has sparked some controversy regarding Cooper’s portrayal of Bernstein, particularly his use of a large prosthetic nose. Critics have labeled it as a form of anti-Semitic “Jewface,” while others, including Bernstein’s children, the Anti-Defamation League, and Cooper himself, have defended the artistic choice.
Who Was Leonard Bernstein?
Leonard Bernstein was one of the most influential and renowned composers of the 20th century, best known for his score to the Broadway musical West Side Story. His dynamic conducting style propelled him into international stardom, particularly with the New York Philharmonic, where he became one of the first American-born conductors to lead a major world-class orchestra. Throughout his career, Bernstein composed a range of works, including other musicals like On the Town and Wonderful Town, operas such as Candide, and large-scale musical pieces like Mass. Bernstein passed away in 1990 at the age of 72 after a long battle with emphysema.
Early Life and Education
Born Louis Bernstein on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Bernstein’s family nicknamed him Lenny, a name he legally adopted at age 16. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a Russian immigrant who had initially been destined for a career as a rabbi but instead built a successful beauty product distribution business. Despite his father’s focus on business and success, Leonard developed a deep passion for music from an early age.
At the age of 10, Bernstein began playing his aunt Clara’s piano, a gift she had bought for herself during a divorce. Although his father initially discouraged the idea, Bernstein took matters into his own hands, raising money to fund piano lessons. His talent quickly became apparent, and by the time of his bar mitzvah, his father was impressed enough to purchase him a baby grand piano.
Bernstein attended Boston Latin School, where he encountered his first significant mentor, Helen Coates. He went on to study music theory at Harvard University, later refining his skills under the tutelage of renowned instructors such as Arthur Tillman Merritt and Walter Piston. Bernstein’s defining moment came in 1937, when he attended a Boston Symphony concert conducted by Dmitri Mitropoulos. The Greek conductor’s passionate style captivated Bernstein, inspiring him to pursue music with even greater dedication. This experience led him to spend a week studying under Mitropoulos, solidifying his commitment to a career in music.
To further hone his technical skills, Bernstein spent a year at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying conducting with Fritz Reiner. While Reiner’s disciplined approach to music shaped Bernstein’s technique, it was Bernstein’s own vibrant, spontaneous style that ultimately defined his career. In 1940, he joined the prestigious Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where he studied conducting under Serge Koussevitzky, who became a guiding figure in Bernstein’s life and career, reinforcing his belief in the transformative power of music.
Early Career
Despite Leonard Bernstein’s passion and exceptional talent, his career initially faced setbacks. After his summer at Tanglewood, Bernstein struggled to find stable work and resorted to transcribing music. However, his fortunes changed unexpectedly. Due to the war draft, there was a shortage of available musicians in the U.S., prompting the New York Philharmonic to seek an assistant conductor. Bernstein seized the opportunity, accepting the role under conductor Artur Rodzinski. At the age of 25, he became the youngest and first American to hold this position.
On November 14, 1943, a pivotal moment in Bernstein’s career arrived. The guest conductor, the renowned Bruno Walter, fell ill, and Rodzinski, both capable and generous, instructed Bernstein to step in and conduct that evening’s concert. Bernstein rose to the occasion, impressing both the audience and his fellow musicians. The concert’s success was highlighted in The New York Times, which proclaimed it “a good American success story,” and the acclaim spread across the nation. Bernstein’s performance solidified his reputation, and by the end of the season, he had conducted the Philharmonic 11 times.
In the years that followed, Bernstein conducted the New York City Center Orchestra and made guest appearances across the U.S., Europe, and Israel. In 1944, he developed his first Broadway musical, On the Town, which was adapted from a ballet he had previously worked on with choreographer Jerome Robbins. The musical’s success led to a 1949 film adaptation starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Bernstein’s international connections deepened, particularly with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he performed extensively, including a 1947 concert in Tel Aviv and a 1948 performance for Israeli troops during the Arab-Israeli War.
In 1949, Bernstein conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a televised concert celebrating the anniversary of the United Nations’ ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This historic broadcast marked Bernstein’s first television appearance and the inaugural television broadcast from Carnegie Hall.
West Side Story and Other Musicals
Throughout the 1950s, Bernstein’s career continued to flourish, marked by extensive international tours. In 1952, he founded the Creative Arts Festival at Brandeis University, furthering his growing interest in teaching. Through programs like Omnibus and Young People’s Concerts, Bernstein reached new audiences, sharing his love of music with viewers around the world.
During this decade, Bernstein composed numerous operas and musicals that garnered both critical acclaim and commercial success. One of his early projects was the 1950 musical adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, which, despite being scaled down from a full musical to a 10-minute production with only seven songs, was well-received. Bernstein’s subsequent work, Trouble in Tahiti (1951), a chamber opera about an upper-middle-class couple’s discontent, further demonstrated his range as a composer.
In 1953, Bernstein composed the score for Wonderful Town, a musical about two sisters who move to New York to pursue careers in writing and acting. With only five weeks to write the music, Bernstein collaborated closely with playwrights Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov. The production won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Actress for Rosalind Russell.
Bernstein’s work on Broadway reached its zenith with West Side Story (1957). The musical, inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, tells the tragic love story of Tony and Maria amidst gang violence between the Jets and the Sharks on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Bernstein, working alongside Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim, infused the score with jazz, Latin rhythms, and extended dance sequences. Despite initial concerns over the show’s complexity, West Side Story opened to unanimous praise and went on to become one of the most iconic musicals of the 20th century, winning multiple Tony Awards and inspiring a celebrated 1961 film adaptation and a 2021 remake by Steven Spielberg.
New York Philharmonic
In 1957, Bernstein was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic, a role he held for the remainder of his career. During his tenure, he introduced several innovations, including championing contemporary composers and creating informal concerts where he directly engaged with the audience. His Young People’s Concerts series, broadcast on CBS, brought classical music into millions of homes, greatly expanding his reach and influence.
One notable moment in Bernstein’s tenure involved celebrated pianist Glenn Gould’s performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, which featured a slower, idiosyncratic tempo than typical. Bernstein, while expressing his reservations, defended Gould’s artistic choices in a widely-publicized address to the audience, famously asking, “In a concerto, who is the boss: the soloist or the conductor?” This incident, which led to speculation about a rift between the two, was later clarified by Bernstein, who explained that the comments were made with Gould’s encouragement.
In 1962, the New York Philharmonic moved to its new home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, with Bernstein conducting the opening night gala. His passion for Gustav Mahler’s works became a hallmark of his career, and Bernstein’s interpretation of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at a televised memorial following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 further solidified his reputation as a conductor of profound emotional depth.
Late Career
In the latter part of his career, Bernstein’s responsibilities with the New York Philharmonic left him with little time to focus on composing. However, in 1965, he took a year-long sabbatical from the orchestra to compose Chichester Psalms, a significant choral work featuring texts from the Book of Psalms sung in their original Hebrew. The piece became one of Bernstein’s most performed concert works, with more than 270 performances across 28 countries and 30 states in the U.S.
Starting in 1966, Bernstein regularly collaborated with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting concerts and recording Mahler’s symphonies with the orchestra. That same year, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis commissioned him to compose a piece for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The result was Mass, a large-scale theater work based on the Tridentine Mass of the Catholic Church. The composition, which includes liturgical passages sung in Latin, features a chorus expressing disillusionment and doubt in their faith, ultimately concluding with a reaffirmation. Although Mass generated mixed reviews and controversy upon its debut, it remains a powerful statement of Bernstein’s artistic vision.
Bernstein continued his prolific career in the decades that followed, balancing conducting, composing, teaching, and producing television specials. He reunited with choreographer Jerome Robbins in 1974 to create the ballet Dybbuk, based on S. Ansky’s play. Another notable composition from this period was the 1983 opera A Quiet Place, a sequel to his 1951 opera Trouble in Tahiti. Despite high expectations, A Quiet Place was critically panned, causing Bernstein deep personal disappointment. In 1986, he expressed his frustration at a social gathering, remarking, “You know what’s made me really distraught? I am only going to be remembered as the man who wrote West Side Story,” to which someone quipped, “Well, that’s better than being remembered as the man who wrote A Quiet Place.”
Bernstein frequently performed at Tanglewood, the renowned music venue in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, where he conducted his final concert with the Boston Symphony in August 1990. Despite experiencing pain and exhaustion during the performance, including a coughing fit during the third movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, he persevered and completed the concert.
Personal Life and Sexuality
Bernstein met Costa Rican-Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre in February 1947, and though they initially broke off their engagement within a year, they later rekindled their relationship and married in August 1951. Together, they had three children: Jamie, Alexander, and Nina. Publicly, Bernstein presented himself as a devoted husband and father, but privately, he was involved in numerous affairs with both men and women. Montealegre, fully aware of Bernstein’s bisexuality, maintained a public facade of marital harmony, but privately, his behavior placed a great strain on their relationship. In a poignant letter, she wrote, “You are a homosexual and may never change… Our marriage is not based on passion but on tenderness and mutual respect.”
Throughout his life, Bernstein wrestled with his sexuality, engaging in therapy in an attempt to “cure” himself, according to The New York Times. In correspondence with his sister, Bernstein described his attraction to men, stating, “I have been engaged in an imaginary life with Felicia.”
In 1971, Bernstein met Tom Cothran, the music director of a San Francisco classical radio station, with whom he soon fell in love. After five years, Bernstein left Montealegre for Cothran, which led to a bitter confrontation. Montealegre, devastated, told Bernstein that he would “die a bitter and lonely old man.” Shortly after their separation, Montealegre was diagnosed with lung cancer. Bernstein returned to care for her until her death in June 1978. The loss deeply affected him, and he never fully recovered. Although he remained close friends with Cothran until his death from AIDS in 1987, Bernstein did not resume his romantic relationship with him.
Death
A lifelong smoker, Bernstein suffered from emphysema in his later years. He passed away from a heart attack on October 14, 1990, at the age of 72. Bernstein was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, alongside Montealegre, with a copy of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony placed over his heart. In his obituary, The New York Times referred to Bernstein as “one of the most prodigally talented and successful musicians in American history.” In the days following his death, the New York Philharmonic dedicated all its performances to Bernstein, and the record companies Sony Classical and Deutsche Grammophon announced the release of nearly 90 compact discs of his symphonic recordings.
Maestro Biopic
The 2023 film Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper and produced by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, stars Cooper and Carey Mulligan as Bernstein and Montealegre. The biographical film centers on their complex relationship and Bernstein’s career. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2023 and later screened at Lincoln Center in October. The film stirred controversy over Cooper’s use of a prosthetic nose to portray Bernstein, with some critics accusing it of anti-Semitic “Jewface.” However, Bernstein’s children defended the portrayal, and the Anti-Defamation League stated that the prosthetic was not a form of caricature. Following a limited theatrical release, Maestro began streaming on Netflix on December 20, 2023.