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re: The last great musical to open on Broadway

Posted by: AlanScott 07:51 am EDT 03/14/14
In reply to: re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - JayBee 07:32 am EDT 03/14/14
If you don't want people to respond, why wonder on the board like that?

As I mentioned below, I saw it three times. I love Sondheim, and I loved the production, but it's among the lesser Sondheim shows for me.

I find too many of the lyrics a bit too knowing for the characters, or problematic in other ways, although brilliantly crafted, of course. I find much of the writing in the book to be straining for an elegance and wit that it too often fails to achieve. And I find some of the characters under-musicalized, yet I find "It Would Have Been Wonderful" an unnecessary though entertaining song. I wish that some different song-placement choices had been in the second act.

That said, there are many things that I love about the show, even some things about the book. But it's not one of my favorites. Less quintet and more singing for the principal characters would have been nice, although I like the quintet's material.

It sounded in one of your posts below like you were saying that if someone hadn't seen the original production he had no right, or at least no basis, on which to comment on your statement that Night Music was the last great musical. Perhaps you were joking. I couldn't tell.

If you weren't, that seems odd (as others suggested indirectly). I mean, if I'd seen the original production of Carousel and said it was the last great material, and if you didn't see the original production you were not qualified to disagree, that would be very silly, for reasons that I think are fairly obvious.


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Previous: re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - Chazwaza 12:06 pm EDT 03/14/14
Next: re: The last great musical to open on Broadway - AlanScott 06:25 pm EDT 03/14/14

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