[25] In the summers, the Bernstein family would go to their vacation home in Sharon, Massachusetts, where young Leonard conscripted all the neighborhood children to put on shows ranging from Bizet's Carmen to Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S.

[59] In the fall of 1943, Bernstein and Jerome Robbins began work on their first collaboration, Fancy Free, a ballet about three young sailors on leave in wartime New York City.

[74] The production, which opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950, starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff in the dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook.

Like the 1940 play, directed on Broadway by George S. Kaufman, it is based on the autobiographical short stories, collectively titled My Sister Eileen, that were written by Ruth McKenney and published in the early 1930s by The New Yorker.

Anxious about the parallels Hellman had deliberately drawn between Voltaire's story and the ongoing hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Guthrie persuaded the collaborators to cut their most incendiary sections prior to opening night.

[85] Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway".

In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which continues to be popular with orchestras worldwide.

[89] In addition to Bernstein's compositional activity for the stage, he wrote a symphonic work, Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" (1954); the score On the Waterfront (1954); and Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, composed in 1949, but only premiered in 1955, for jazz big band and solo clarinet.

This decade saw a significant expansion of Bernstein and the Philharmonic's collaboration with Columbia Records, together they released over 400 compositions, covering a broad swath of the classical music canon.

[113] Bernstein's major compositions during the 1970s were his Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers; his score for the ballet Dybbuk; his orchestral vocal work Songfest; and his U.S. bicentennial musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, which was his last Broadway show and only theatrical flop.

Bernstein deliberately selected the widest possible array of literary voices to express the nation's essential diversity; the poets include June Jordan, Julia de Burgos, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes.

In partnership with Unitel, Amberson created many video productions of concert performances, starting with Verdi's Requiem Mass in St. Paul's Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1970, produced and directed by Humphrey Burton.

[134] In 1979, Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for the first and only time, in two charity concerts for Amnesty International featuring performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, recorded live on Deutsche Grammophon.

[138] Bernstein continued his longtime relationship with Tanglewood to the end of his life, including a lavish televised gala in 1988 to celebrate his 70th birthday, as well as his final concert performance in August 1990.

[141] Conducting activities During the 1980s, in addition to continuing his productive relationship with the New York, Israel, and Vienna Philharmonics, Bernstein was also a regular guest conductor with several other major orchestras around the world.

[142] In Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein recorded works including Wagner's Tristan und Isolde; Haydn's Creation; and Mozart's Requiem and Great Mass in C minor.

[160] Other documentaries that Bernstein made during the 1980s include The Little Drummer Boy,[161] which delved into the music of Gustav Mahler, and The Love of Three Orchestras,[162] exploring his work with the New York, Vienna, and Israel Philharmonics.

Educational activities Bernstein's nurturing experience at the Tanglewood Music Festival inspired him to use his international influence to recreate that environment for young musicians in the final years of his life.

[171] In his opening address, Bernstein said: "And my decision has been, without too much thought, to spend most of the remaining energy and time the Lord grants me in education and sharing, as much as possible, with younger people.

In April 1943, he sought advice from Aaron Copland about living as a gay man in the public eye, a notion he brought up again in a letter to David Oppenheim in July of that year.

[205] Throughout his life, Bernstein fought for a variety of political and humanitarian causes, from the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War protests to nuclear disarmament to advocacy during the AIDS crisis.

[206] Bernstein's first public efforts for social change became apparent in 1939 when, as a college student at Harvard, he organized and led a performance of Marc Blitzstein's recently banned musical, The Cradle Will Rock, about the struggles of the working class.

[211] On March 24, 1965, at the invitation of Harry Belafonte, Bernstein participated in the Stars for Freedom Rally, a star-studded performance in support of the marchers heading from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights.

Rostropovich, a strong believer in free speech and democracy, had been officially held in disgrace; his concerts and tours both at home and abroad cancelled; and in 1972 he was prohibited to travel outside of the Soviet Union.

Senator from Massachusetts Ted Kennedy and his wife Joan, urged by Bernstein and others in the cultural sphere, mentioned Rostropovich's situation to Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union Communist Party Leader.

"[228] On April 30, 1983, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Bernstein participated in one of the earliest HIV / AIDS fundraisers, which raised over $250,000 for the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC).

During his many years at Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein and elsewhere, Bernstein directly influenced many young conductors, including Seiji Ozawa, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas, James DePreist, Edo de Waart, Eiji Oue, JoAnn Falletta, Yutaka Sado, Maurice Peress, Carl St. Clair, John Mauceri, and Jaap van Zweden.

Choreographers of Bernstein's music include Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, John Neumeier, Alexei Ratmansky, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Larry Keigwin, and Justin Peck.

That year, four of the five most-played concert works worldwide were Bernstein compositions: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Overture to Candide, Serenade (after Plato's Symposium), and Chichester Psalms.

Between 1992 and 1993, Sony reissued and digitally remastered Bernstein's complete Columbia catalog as part of a 100-volume, 125-CD "Royal Edition", featuring watercolors by Charles, Prince of Wales on the covers.