Tanglewood's Hollywood debut in Bradley Cooper's new film 'Maestro'

Bradley Cooper's new movie “Maestro” hits select theaters Nov. 22. He directed and stars as conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. To channel the world of the 20th century celebrity, Cooper filmed at locations including Bernstein's home in Connecticut and Tanglewood in Lenox. Let's just say the Boston Symphony Orchestra is pretty excited for its summer home's Hollywood debut.

When “Maestro's” teaser hit the internet this summer, some people were enraged by Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose. But folks at the BSO had their eyes on the scenery. And they got a thrill because the film teaser features Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealgre bantering with bucolic shots of Tanglewood in the background.

In August, Jake Moerschel drove up a winding driveway to show me the stone wall in the teaser's final shot. Back in May of 2022, Cooper and Carey Mulligan sauntered away from its embankment, arm in arm. “It was an entire village of people and cars and trucks and equipment,” Moerschel recalled.

As BSO director of production, he worked closely with Cooper's crew at Seranak. The stately property, just up the hill from Tanglewood's campus, boasts breathtaking Berkshire views. Bernstein's mentor Serge Koussevitzky summered at his Seranak residence after founding what was first called the Berkshire Music Center. His protegé spent countless hours there throughout his life.

Bernstein's legacy looms large at Tanglewood. Moerschel, a BSO employee of 31 years, grew up hearing stories about him from his father, who was a BSO cellist. He even has one of his own. “When I was a toddler apparently Mr. Bernstein almost ran me over in his car,” Moerschel said. “He was driving across the lawn.”

Cooper captured that lush lawn, along with the theater where Bernstein led master classes. These spots could have been recreated elsewhere, or with CGI, but Cooper's goal was authenticity. “I think it's the buildings, the history, you can practically hear the music when you are walking across campus,” Moerschel said. “Anyone who's been to Tanglewood will see those scenes and immediately know that that's where it was shot.”

In Boston, BSO archivist Bridget Carr agreed. “That was a very smart decision,” she said, “because Tanglewood is almost a character in Bernstein's life.”

For 32 years, Carr has been a caretaker of Bernstein's legacy. She pulled out boxes stored at the Symphony Hall archive, filled with old, mimeographed concert programs and stunning photographs.

“The guy knew how to dress,” Carr said holding one up. “Look at this striped jacket, the bow tie, the cigarette.”

Bernstein stood out in 1940 when he became a member of the inaugural conducting class at Tanglewood. The Lawrence-born, Harvard-educated Bostonian was also the first to lead student orchestra concerts from the podium. Carr shared a recording of Bernstein's 1940 performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. “It's the first example of audio that we have of Leonard Bernstein conducting at the Tanglewood Music Center,” she said.

Other archival recordings include Bernstein instructing the BSO during a rehearsal in 1949, and his 1970 performance of Mahler's epic “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2. Carr brought out a photo of that moment at Tanglewood. In it, Bernstein looks like an ecstatic rock star with his legs spread apart and arms flung high in the air. (Cooper has said it took six years to learn how to conduct like Bernstein for a scene in “Maestro.”)

Bernstein's celebrity skyrocketed after his early years in Lenox. He was lauded for his wildly passionate conducting and groundbreaking compositions including the 1957 Broadway musical, “West Side Story.” But from the 1970s on, Carr said he always made his way back to Tanglewood. “He started his career there in many ways, and he ended his career there. His last concert he conducted publicly was at Tanglewood in 1990.” Bernstein died that same year at age 72.

Carr remembers seeing Cooper at Tanglewood's centennial celebration for Bernstein in 2018. She had organized a companion exhibition, and Cooper was spotted (with his bodyguards) perusing the display in the visitor's center. “It was pretty exciting for an archivist,” she said.

Cooper describes “Maestro” as a love story, not a biopic, about the conductor's complex, 27-year relationship with his wife Felicia. They married in 1951. Bernstein's daughter Jamie's memoir, “Famous Father Girl,” informed the movie's story which Cooper and Josh Singer co-wrote. The book and movie explore how Bernstein's extramarital affairs with men affected his family, and his identity.

“It's what people had to deal with in order to be their authentic selves, how you had to be part of two different worlds,” Carr said. “And that must have been quite a strain on him.”

“My parents had this really unusual marriage, and they genuinely adored each other,” Bernstein's oldest child said from her home in New York City. “There was total authenticity in their connection, but it was complicated. And then it got more complicated later on.”

As much as “Maestro” is a portrait of their marriage, it also paints a sympathetic picture of Jamie Bernstein's mother. “The shape of our lives was that our dad was the big super star, and everybody else was a planet revolving around that sun,” she said. “That was particularly challenging for our mother, as his life partner and wife, to figure out where she stood in the universe.” Felicia Montealgre was also a gifted actress and painter.

Jamie Bernstein's father's dalliances fuel a pivotal scene in “Maestro” that involves Tanglewood, where she and her two siblings worked when they were young. “I was there one summer in 1970, the summer when I heard the rumors – all of which come up in the film,” she said. “So we all have this first hand experience of Tanglewood.”

Cooper worked closely with Bernstein's family while making “Maestro,” and she appreciates his deeply researched, unvarnished portrait of her parents' struggles. “He was just so committed to achieving this essential level of authenticity,” she said. “That's what led him to decide to shoot at Tanglewood as well as to shoot at our own family country house in Connecticut.”

Now that “Maestro” is out in the world, it's exciting — and emotional — for her family. Jamie Bernstein said, “The adjective we keep turning to is surreal.”

“Maestro” opens in Boston theaters on Dec. 1 and starts streaming on Netflix on Dec. 20.