On Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Legacy and American Cultural Treasures

When I read last week that the rights to the oeuvre of Rodgers and Hammerstein — including the collaborators’ huge, beloved song catalog and the musicals themselves that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote — had been sold to Imagem Music Group, the investment limb of a Dutch pension fund, part of me was tremendously saddened. It was hardly an industry secret that the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization was looking to sell itself for something more than a song; if anything, perhaps the company should have made this move a couple of years ago when the market seemed hotter overall than it is today. Then again, perhaps the current blockbuster Broadway revival of South Pacific has turbocharged the value of the Rodgers and Hammerstein estates to a point where this was, indeed, just the right time to strike. No matter how you slice it, the sale marks the end of an era. At a reputed price tag of $200 million, it’s high as the flag on the fourth of July, indeed.

And both Imagen and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, for reasons that are understandable, trumpeted the merger proudly in the press. Here is the announcement on Imagen’s website and here, below, is a little of the text of the announcement that best sizes up the enormous magnitude of this transaction:

RHO, as a licensing agency, represents more than 12,000 songs, 900 concert works, 200 writers and 100 musicals, including works by Irving Berlin and Rodgers & Hart, such as Berlin’s “White Christmas” and Annie Get Your Gun, and Rodgers & Hart’s Pal Joey and “The Lady is a Tramp.” RHO is in friendly and constructive discussions with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group about continuing to represent his musicals in North America, including Cats, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Also, here is what the New York Times said, in its typically dispassionate, read-between-the-lines manner:

The sale represents a transfer of power over one of America’s most famous song catalogs and the licensing rights for future productions of the musicals, which until now had been controlled by the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, a Manhattan-based company that is widely known in the theater world for its quality control and the active involvement of two heirs, the writers’ daughters Mary Rodgers Guettel and Alice Hammerstein Mathias.

As part of the deal — the value of which was not released — Imagem is also acquiring the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization and retaining its management, led by its president and executive director, Theodore S. Chapin.

Mr. Chapin said in an interview that Imagem was committed to maintaining high artistic standards for both future productions and the commercial licensing of specific songs, which include “My Favorite Things,” “Some Enchanted Evening” and standards from other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals like “Carousel” and “The King and I.” Ms. Rodgers Guettel and Ms. Hammerstein Mathias will also remain involved as part of an advisory committee.

The third graph is great — I never thought for a minute that Rodgers Guettel (with whom I have been acquainted) or Hammerstein Mathias or Chapin would acquiesce to a sale that would do anything but uphold, preserve, protect and defend the Rodgers and Hammerstein legacy into the future. So that’s not what made me sad. What made me sad is feeling that something unquestionably American — in culture, spirit, history — had been lost to what one might call a foreign owner. While it’s not as if the Dutch are known for raping the American cultural landscape, it still seemed to sting.

However, Dalouge Smith, who runs a blog called Dog Days and is, per his bio, “President & CEO of San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory and serves as Chairman of the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition,” decided to turn this moment into a bit of a snark-fest with a post called “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Ricola.” Mind you, Ricola cough drops and breath mints are actually Swiss, but I won’t quibble. It did make for a pithy headline.

And in some ways it is a very good post. For example, Smith asks,

Should you be alarmed that these landmarks of the American musical theater will now be foreign owned after being privately owned by their authors and heirs since creation? The answer is complicated.

The first place to look for a clue to assessing this sale is to examine how the news was reported. In the NY Times you’ll find the story in the Theater section and in The Times of London it resides in the Business section. The NY Times gives some attention to the cultural import of these works by quoting the families’ business manager that the buyers are “committed to maintaining high artistic standards for both future productions and the commercial licensing of specific songs.”…

Smith then raises an issue that most people probably aren’t thinking of. Since Imagen happens to be the investment arm of pension funds, and…

Assuming that pension funds are exclusively focused on growing their investments to meet payout obligations, this sale is problematic. How long until the families’ reputation for holding productions to the letter of the text is undermined by the lure of advertising revenue? How long until the lyrics of a song are transformed to sell a product – doing more damage to the integrity of these artists’ work through mass replication than any theater production anywhere could even dream of doing? Or even worse, how long until a show can’t get performed because of a non-compete clauses written into advertising licensing agreements?

But even that is not really what Smith is getting at. In fact, I’m not sure he knows enough about the production of contemporary musical theatre to effectively argue that “the lure of advertising revenue” is adversely affecting “the letter of the text” or that non-compete clauses are going to hamper productions. Among other things, in cities like New York there are already plenty of reasons why certain shows can’t be done, such as when rights owners hold out for big, splashy commercial runs. And there are plenty of people who wouldn’t be bothered at all if there was a little less in the way of retreaded musical theater out there and more in the way of something new.

Good grief, so the real issue is about purity?

To read more of this story, visit The Clyde Fitch Report.