music—these are vastly different songs. Yet the touch of simi-
larity in their melodies does mean something. One can say that
these two gamblers are alike—they sing the same tune for a
minute. That would be right as far as it goes, but it does not go
far enough. Musicals have broad voices in which various char-
acters share, and this tune shared at different points in the
show between Sky and Nathan comes from the voice of Guys
and Dolls. The orchestra gives Sky a richer and more mysteri-
ous harmony under the tune. The richer harmony lies beneath
“Comes up clean and fresh and cold” in “My Time of Day,”
and it is based on a flatted fifth. The flatted fifth is a distinctive
harmony for the gamblers and their dolls: Adelaide has it in
“Adelaide’s Lament,” and Nicely-Nicely and Benny have it in
the title tune, “Guys and Dolls.” The flatted fifth is one way
the voice of Guys and Dollsis created. Carouseluses an aug-
mented triad to the same effect, and Sweeney Todduses the in-
terval of a ninth.^10 Repeated distinctive harmonies are a way to
create a musical universe. The melodic bits shared between
Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit, or among Eliza, Freddy,
and Henry Higgins, are another way, and this kind of shared
motif brings into focus the actual sharing of tunes sung in a
duet, like “Marry the Man Today,” sung by the heroines in
Guys and Dolls, or the duets sung by lovers in most musicals.
These are all instances of the voice of the musical making itself
heard.
The Kurt Weill/Elmer Rice/Langston Hughes Street Scene
(1947) creates a beautiful moment when the theme of Anna’s
major aria from act 1 is sung by another character, the young
law student named Sam, when he realizes in act 2 that Anna is
dead. There is no reason to ask how Sam came to learn Anna’s
aria. He is not a learner of arias. Music can be heard within a
musical or an opera even when there is no book reason for
hearing it, and the heard music can be shared. Anna projected
this major piece earlier, as what seemed an entirely personal
70 CHAPTER THREE
(^10) For Carousel, see Swain, The Broadway Musical, pp. 101–27. Banfield,
Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals, pp. 292–305, gives further examples of repeated
motifs in Sweeney Todd.