HOT will open the doors to André Previn’s musical transformation of the classic Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire on January 27.

The production — and the phenomenal success it represents — is a tribute to how music can complement theatre, and vice versa.

Williams wrote with authority about the challenges faced by the characters in his play, such as depression and substance abuse. His work is distinctively his own.  But André Previn’s rich life experiences and love of jazz predisposed him to be up to the task of reinterpreting the dark and emotional motifs of the American classic for an operatic audience.

They are two very different artists — the playwright and the composer. Yet, when one compares the two men’s lives, there are interesting commonalities. And the result is a fascinating, posthumous collaboration in the form of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Early Life
Both Williams and Previn had happy childhoods, through Williams was born 18 years earlier. Williams grew up the son of a shoe company executive and a southern belle in Columbus, Mississippi. Previn was born in Berlin, Germany to a wealthy family. But both artists lives were soon upheaved. When Williams family moved to the city of St. Louis, Missouri, he became unsatisfied with life. He took to writing to provide an escape from city life and his parents’ dysfunctional marriage. The threat of World War II and Nazi rule, on the other hand, is what forced Previn out of his peaceful youth. He and his family fled to Paris in 1938, and Previn devoted his time in the city to studying at the Paris Conservatory of Music.

As both creators were beginning to recognize their talents, they faced obstacles. In 1929 Williams began studying journalism at the University of Missouri. But his father ended his education after learning that Williams’ male love interest attended the same school. Williams became a shoe salesman at his father’s company soon after, and his hatred of the labor contributed to his chronic depression. Previn’s studies in Paris were cut short when his family announced their move to the United States. No one in the family spoke English. Previn gave music lessons at home to earn money, but he wasn’t content with the role.

Finding a spark of passion would bring both of the men closer to their dreams.

Flourishing Careers
Williams moved to New Orleans at the age of 28 and fell deeply in love with the city, which would prove to inspire much of his later work, including A Streetcar Named Desire. He began submitting his plays to local contests, and word of his talent spread. He landed an agent not long after. Previn, who had again taken up studying composition, became infatuated with American jazz. His unique understanding of both classical music and jazz drew admirers. He wrote a musical score for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and signed a contract with the movie studio at just 18 years old.

And so the artists’ careers began. Williams spent years writing and traveling the country before his first critically acclaimed play, The Glass Menagerie, hit the stage in 1944. The play won Williams a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and brought him fame. A Streetcar Named Desire opened two years later, earning him another a Drama Critics’ Award and his first Pulitzer Prize. Around the same time, Previn was receiving accolades as well. As MGM Musical Director, he adapted hit songs for films and composed original scores for musicals and other dramas. He was nominated for sixteen Academy Awards and won four. In the late 60s and early 70s, Previn was pulled again by classical music and began recording with the London Symphony Orchestra and also became conductor-in-chief of the Houston Symphony Orchestra.

But some of the same issues that plagued the characters of A Streetcar Named Desire, such as depression, addiction, and adultery, would eventually present themselves in the two men’s public lives.

Challenges
Williams had fought depression his whole life, and writing was his salvation. But even writing couldn’t ease the pain of losing his best friend to cancer in the 60s. The decade also brought the harshest criticism of his work by the press. Though he continued to write, he became more and more dependent on alcohol and drugs to cope. In 1969, Williams’ brother hospitalized him. That same year, Previn was dealing with problems of his own. While Previn was married to his second wife, he had an affair with actress Mia Farrow, the ex-wife of popular singer Frank Sinatra. She gave birth to their twin sons in early 1970. Previn left the Houston Symphony Orchestra and he and his wife divorced due to the misconduct. Previn married Farrow afterward, but they also divorced after about a decade.

Both men never faltered in their craft, even with the setbacks.

Lasting Achievements
After Williams was released from hospitalization, he began feverishly writing again. Over the next decade or so, he wrote plays, a memoir, poems, short stories and a novel. But In 1983, Williams’ addiction caught back up with him, and he died in a New York City hotel room surrounded by bottles of wine and pills. Despite the abrupt and heartbreaking end to his career, Williams went down in history as one of America’s greatest playwrights, winning four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died, perhaps, not recognizing his full impact on the stage and the screen. Previn, on the other hand, has lived to see his full life’s work honored and his earlier missteps reconciled. He toured throughout Europe and the United States as the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and continued to compose throughout the 70s and 80s. In 1982, Previn married and had one child. Additionally, he formed the Andre Previn Jazz Trio, which toured in the early 90s. In 1998 Previn received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his career as a conductor and composer at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in Washington, D.C. Now 87, Previn is known as one of the most versatile musicians in the world.

The opera adaptation of the classic American play A Streetcar Named Desire is the result of the combination of Williams’ and Previns’ rich life experiences, unique perspectives, and monumental talent.

To see the work of these historic artists come to life in Hawaii, click the button below.

• Buy Tickets to A Streetcar Named Desire

By Allison Kronberg

Sources:

Tennessee Williams Biography

http://www.biography.com/people/tennessee-williams-9532952#synopsis
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pe-Pu/Previn-Andr.html