Lerner, Alan Jay
Lerner, Alan Jay (1918–86),American lyricist and librettist for such Broadway musicals as My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960). In these musicals Lerner followed the practice of other Broadway librettists in adapting an existing literary work into a musical, but in his first major show, Brigadoon (1947), Lerner claimed to have created his own original story about a Scottish village that only comes to life for one day every hundred years. He acknowledged that he was influenced by James Barrie's books about his native Scotland, but it was a remark by his musical collaborator, Frederick (Fritz) Loewe, that inspired the story of Brigadoon. ‘Faith moves mountains’, Loewe had said, and Lerner created a tale of two Americans on a hunting trip in Scotland who come upon the magical village. They fall in love with two of the village girls, but at first they are not able to give up their own world to join the village...
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