“Lulu’s Back in Town”

By Al Dubin and Harry Warren
Arr. Craig Terry
WC Music Corp. (ASCAP)

Will Liverman, baritone
Craig Terry, piano

Composer Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna, 1893-1981) and lyricist Al Dubin (1891-1945) were one of the most successful duos writing American popular songs during the 1930s and '40s. Warren had a long, happy life; Dubin had problems in his marriages and with drugs and alcohol, dying at the age of 53. He met Warren in 1925, and their collaboration in Hollywood produced the greatest successes of Dubin's career, including several songs for the hit 1933 musical 42nd Street. The two were awarded an Oscar for "Lullaby of Broadway," heard in the film Gold Diggers of 1935. Warren went on to work with other lyricists, winning two more Oscars: with Mack Gordon for "You'll Never Know" (1943) and with Johnny Mercer for "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe" (1945). In a career lasting nearly six decades he composed more than 800 songs, among them standards such as "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," "I Only Have Eyes for You," and "That's Amore."

One of Warren and Dubin's hits from their Hollywood days was "Lulu's Back in Town," the classic expression of an eager young man attempting to ready himself to make his best impression on an attractive woman. The song was performed by actor/singer Dick Powell and the Mills Brothers in Broadway Gondolier in 1935. In the same year pianist/composer/singer Fats Waller made his famous recording of the song, and subsequently it was a success for such prominent artists as Mel Tormé, Oscar Peterson, and Thelonius Monk.

Text

Gotta get my old tuxedo pressed,
Gotta sew a button on my vest,
'Cause tonight I've gotta look my best,
Lulu's back in town.

Gotta get a half a buck somewhere,
Gotta shine my shoes and slick my hair,
Gotta get myself a boutonniere,
Lulu's back in town.

You can tell all my pets
All my Harlem coquettes;
Mister Otis regrets
That he won't be around.

You can tell the mailman not to call
I ain't comin' home until the fall
And I might not get back home at all
Lulu's back in town.

You can tell all my pets
All my Harlem coquettes;
Mister Otis regrets
That he won't be around.

You can tell the mailman not to call
I ain't comin' home until the fall
And I might not get back home at all
Lulu's back in town.

Oh Lulu's back in town.
Oh she's back in town!

Baritone

Will Liverman

The American baritone and Ryan Opera Center alumnus earned critical acclaim as Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker’s YARDBIRD (world premiere, Opera Philadelphia), a role he reprised at Lyric, London’s English National Opera, Madison Opera, and at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He has also portrayed Malcolm Fleet/Marnie (Metropolitan Opera), Figaro/The Barber of Seville (Seattle Opera, Kentucky Opera, Virginia Opera), and Papageno/The Magic Flute (Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera and Opera Colorado). Recent performance highlights include Horehamb/Akhnaten and a reprisal of Papageno (both at the Metropolitan Opera), Silvio/Pagliacci (Opera Colorado), and Schaunard/La bohème (Opera Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera), as well as a live-streamed recital with Valhalla Media at Chicago’s Studebaker Theater featuring works by African-American composers including Damien Sneed and Margaret Bonds. Later this season, Liverman is scheduled to appear as Leporello/Don Giovanni at LA Opera and the Huntsman/Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera. He has sung the title role in a concert version of Porgy and Bess with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, performed with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Handel’s Messiah as a guest artist at the University of Chicago, and as baritone soloist/Brahms’s A German Requiem with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. A graduate of Wheaton College, Liverman received a 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, a 2017 3Arts Award and a George London Award. In 2015, he won the prestigious Stella Maris International Vocal Competition.

Pianist and Ryan Opera Center Music Director

Craig Terry

The American pianist has an international performance career and recently won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Classical Solo Vocal Album” for the recording he made with Joyce DiDonato, “Songplay.” He has served as the Jannotta Family Endowed Chair music director of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center since 2013, after having spent 11 seasons with the company as an assistant conductor. Before coming to Lyric, he was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Terry has performed extensively with such esteemed artists such as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Ana María Martínez, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, and Patricia Racette, among others. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera Orchestra, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet. Terry is artistic director of “Beyond the Aria,” a recital series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with Lyric Opera of Chicago. His discography includes “Diva on Detour” with Patricia Racette, “As Long As There Are Songs” with Stephanie Blythe, and “Chanson d’Avril” with Nicole Cabell.

Craig Terry is The Jannotta Family Endowed Chair

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