Creative Processes

A striking amount of material survives to document the creation of what became known as Oklahoma!—including Hammerstein’s sketches and drafts for the libretto (first completed in November 1942), his subsequent work on the lyrics for the songs, and Rodgers’s music manuscripts. These sources reveal how they worked both together and separately in particularly, if differently, creative ways. They also help generate a chronology of the early stages of the show’s genesis that raises further questions about later accounts of it, not least in terms of the dream-ballet at the end of act 1, for which Agnes de Mille claimed significant credit. In addition, the orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett reveal what he added in terms of instrumental color and, at times, new musical notes.