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 After long and highly distinguished careers with other collaborators,
Richard Rodgers (composer) and Oscar Hammerstein II (librettist/lyricist)
joined forces to create the most consistently fruitful and successful
partnership in the American musical theatre.
Prior to his work with Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) collaborated
with lyricist Lorenz Hart on a series of musical comedies that epitomised
the wit and sophistication of Broadway in its heyday. Prolific on Broadway,
in London and in Hollywood from the '20s into the early '40s, Rodgers
& Hart wrote more than 40 shows and film scores. Among their greatest
were On Your Toes, Babes In Arms, The Boys From Syracuse,
I Married An Angel and Pal Joey.
 Throughout the same era Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) brought new
life to a moribund art form: the operetta. His collaborations with such
pre-eminent composers as Rudolf Friml, Sigmund Romberg and Vincent Youmans
resulted in such operetta classics as The
Desert Song, Rose-Marie,
and The New Moon. With Jerome Kern he wrote Show Boat, the 1927
operetta that changed the course of modern musical theatre. His last musical
before embarking on an exclusive partnership with Richard Rodgers was
the highly-acclaimed 1943 all-black version of Bizet's tragic opera Carmen,
entitled Carmen Jones.
Oklahoma!, the first Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, was also the
first of a new genre, the musical play, representing a unique fusion of
Rodgers' musical comedy and Hammerstein's operetta. A milestone in the
development of the American musical, it also marked the beginning of the
most successful partnership in Broadway musical history and was followed
by Carousel, Allegro,
South Pacific, The King and
I, Me and Juliet,
Pipe Dream, Flower Drum
Song and The Sound Of Music. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote
one musical specifically for the big screen, State
Fair, and one for television, Cinderella. Most of their
stage musicals transferred to the screen as well, earning a total of fourteen
Academy Awards; their greatest film success was The Sound Of Music,
the 1965 Best Picture and the most popular musical film ever made.
Despite Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the
Broadway stage. His first solo entry, No
Strings, earned him two Tony Awards for music and lyrics, and
was followed by Do I Hear
A Waltz?, Two By Two, Rex and I
Remember Mama. Richard Rodgers died on 30 December, 1979, less
than eight months after his last musical opened on Broadway. In March
of 1990, Broadway's 46th Street Theatre was renamed The Richard Rodgers
Theatre in his honour.
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