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In a brilliant moment of theatrical self-referentiality, Cole Porter's backstage (show-within-a-show) musical Kiss Me, Kate (1948) opens with an opening song about opening songs.1In "Another Op'nin, Another Show," we meet the actors in the framing show. After some expositional interplay set in the lead couple's dressing rooms, we hear the first song from the framed show (a musical version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew), another opening number about openings: "We Open in Venice."
Both are catalog songs that list cities where the troupe has enjoyed--or endured--openings. The first song enumerates cities along the eastern seaboard of the United States; the second, Italian cities. But, as Example 1 illustrates, the two songs' similarities extend beyond their contexts and subject matters: there are musical correspondences as well. Example 1.
Similarities of the compound-melodic refrains from the two "opening" numbers. a) "Another Op'nin, Another Show" ascends by step (then descends at the cadence); b) "We Open in Venice" pervasively descends by step in the first phrase, then returns to [formula omitted, refer to PDF] in the second.
Both songs feature clear compound melodies with leaps between two well-defined contrapuntal lines. Those lines progressively ascend at the beginning of "Another Op'nin" and descend in "We Open in Venice," and in both cases the tunes reverse course, returning to the opening pitch before restarting after the next refrain. Whether or not audience members detect the clever and subtle melodic mirroring, surely everyone in the theater recognizes that these two songs are paired, and that they help set their respective scenes: not only the matter of place and time (mid-century Baltimore and sixteenth-century Venice), but also the fact that the framing and framed shows will be reflecting one another.
That the lead characters resemble the Shakespearian characters they're portraying aids the integration of the framing (outer) and framed (inner) shows. Fred Graham is self-assured and confident that he will get the girl, but perhaps not to the same degree as Petruchio, the character he portrays; Lilli Vanessi is world weary and outwardly resistant to Fred's charms, but not to the same degree as Kate (Katherine) is to Petruchio's; and Lois Lane is looking for a good time and trying to juggle two very different amorous relationships,...