Peter Pan (1950 musical): History and Key Facts

Peter Pan is a 1950 musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up with music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein; it opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950. This version starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan, Boris Karloff in the dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook, and Marcia Henderson as Wendy. The show was orchestrated by Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay and conducted by Benjamin Steinberg. The show ran for 321 performances, closing on January 27, 1951.

The production was initially intended as a full-blown musical, with Bernstein composing a complete score for it, but was staged with only five songs – "Who Am I?", "Pirate's Song", "Plank Round", "Build My House", and "Peter Peter" – to accommodate the limited vocal ranges of the principals.

In 1998, conductor Alexander Frey began research into whether there may have existed more material that Bernstein had composed for Peter Pan. Over the next seven years, as his schedule allowed, he discovered and restored almost an hour of previously unheard music, much of the material found (and not yet orchestrated) in the archives of the composer's manuscripts. The restored songs included "Captain Hook Soliloquy" and "Dream With Me", as well as other sung material, dance music and orchestral interludes. The world premiere recording of Bernstein's complete score was released on CD in 2005, conducted by Alexander Frey, featuring Broadway star Linda Eder in the role of Wendy Darling and acclaimed baritone Daniel Narducci as Captain Hook, on the Koch International Classics label.

In December 2006, it was produced for the stage by The King's Head Theatre in Islington, London, with Katherine Kastin as Peter Pan, Peter Land as Captain Hook, and Rafaella Hutchinson as Tinker Bell, directed by Stephanie Sinclaire and featuring new musical arrangements by Mike Dixon. This production used only parts of the Bernstein score and none of the original orchestrations. The music was performed by an instrumental trio.

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