Brigadoon - Background

Background

Lyricist and book writer Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe had previously collaborated on three musicals; the first, Life of the Party, closed during pre-Broadway tryouts, and the second and third, What's Up? and The Day Before Spring had met with moderate success. Inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein's successful collaborations Oklahoma! and Carousel, they created Brigadoon, about a magical village in the Scottish highlands. Like Oklahoma! and Carousel, Brigadoon included a serious love story as the main plot and a lighter romance as subplot. Thematically, the musical depicted the contrast between empty city life and the warmth and simplicity of the country, focusing on a theme of love transcending time. Agnes de Mille, who had previously choreographed Oklahoma! and Carousel, was hired as choreographer, and her work for Brigadoon incorporated elements of traditional Scottish folk dance; her dances for the musical included a traditional sword dance, a chase scene, and a funeral dance. Though Lerner and Loewe originally took Brigadoon to producer Billy Rose, Cheryl Crawford was the producer who actually brought Brigadoon to Broadway. Lerner explained the change in producer by stating, "The contract that wished us to sign negated Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves". Under Loewe's guidance, Ted Royal received a sole orchestrator credit for his work on the original production. His atmospheric arrangements have been frequently used for the revivals.

The New York Times's theatre critic George Jean Nathan wrote that Lerner's book was based on a much older German story by Friedrich Gerstäcker, later translated by Charles Brandon Schaeffer, about the mythical village of Germelshausen that fell under a magic curse. However, Lerner denied that he had based the book on an older story, and, in an explanation published in The New York Times, stated that he didn't learn of the existence of the Germelshausen story until after he had completed the first draft of Brigadoon. Lerner said that in his subsequent research, he found many other legends of disappearing towns in various countries' folklore, and he pronounced their similarities "unconscious coincidence".

Lerner's name for his imaginary locale was probably based on a well-known Scottish landmark, the Brig o' Doon (Bridge of Doon). Other sources suggest that the fictional village's name was constructed from the Celtic word "briga", which means "town" (such as in the old city names of Segobriga and Brigantium) and the Scottish Gaelic "dùn", which means a fort. The name may also be a reference to the Celtic goddess Brigid.