A rare Irving Berlin musical has received what producers claim is its UK premiere, with its content only discovered recently after it was first staged in the United States in 1949. The unseen musical – named Miss Liberty – by Berlin was staged on Broadway in New York, telling the fictionalised version of events that led to the Statue of Liberty being mounted on its plinth and becoming part of the city. Berlin remains one of the most important American songwriters but much of his work and music has been overlooked, now ready for rediscovery.
The musical also included four songs that were originally cut from the show, to be seen for the first time by British audiences. The songs have been discovered by Dominic McHugh, a senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Sheffield. Miss Liberty is now receiving his attention in full, to bring the production back to life. The musical was performed in the UK on 9 and 10 December at the Frith Hall in Sheffield and featured the original score, with the original orchestrations.
In addition to his Miss Liberty coup, McHugh had also previously discovered the unheard musical numbers from song writing duo Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady that were also performed earlier this year for first time since 1956. The musical numbers were removed from the musical after the show’s first preview in February 1956 on Broadway: they were later discovered, alongside a ballet penned for the musical, at the Library of Congress in the USA by McHugh in 2008.
The songs, which were believed to be lost, have survived in just a box in the library. It is unknown as to what the ballet music consisted of: many musicals of that period included a ballet, however the ballet for My Fair Lady was thought not to have survived the years.