Chapter Six

THE ORCHESTRA

A Cappella on a Beautiful Morning

A

Tthe beginning of Oklahoma!, when Curly comes on
singing a cappella about the beautiful morning and a
smile crosses Aunt Eller’s face, something is missing.
We know what it is when Curly gets to “the corn is as high as
an elephant’s eye,” for the note he sings on “eye” is suddenly
accompanied by a chord from the orchestra. That’s what was
missing, the orchestra. Now it is missing no longer, and Curly
is no longer on his own. He has what no cowboy has ever had
on a fine summer morning in Indian Territory, an orchestra to
accompany him.
Who hears the orchestra? Does Curly hear it? The per-
former playing Curly does, of course, but I am speaking of the
fictional Curly, the character in the book, and that Curly does
not hear the orchestra. If he did, Aunt Eller would hear it too,
and would drive it off the farm for scaring the animals. No one
in the book hears the orchestra in Oklahoma!
Only the audience hears it, and the surprising thing to the
audience is that Curly sang a few measures a cappella to start
off. The audience knows that a basic convention of the musical
is slipping into place when the orchestra comes in on “eye.” In
the source play, Green Grow the Lilacs, cowboys and their wom-
enfolk sing a cappella several times (Lynn Riggs wanted to pre-
serve some real cowboy songs, so his characters sing a lot). In
amusical we expect the orchestra to accompany anyone who
sings. We knew the Oklahoma!orchestra was there in the first
place, just waiting to chime in. It has already played some of
the musical numbers as an overture. When the orchestra
comes in on “eye,” with its lovely subdominant chord edged