Thank you, Alan. At a certain point in any opera discussion, I'm way outside my comfort zone in terms of musical knowledge.
But more on-topic, perhaps this discussion brings up a more universal one about theater music: the value of melody in terms of audience access to character and story, and emotional resonance. To my ears, the richer the melody, the more likely I will respond on a deeply personal level. Such responses are thus subjective. I remember when SWEENEY TODD first appeared on disc, a big discussion of the song "Johanna" with a friend, not someone musically illiterate at all, who felt its melody was too intricate, too elliptical to serve the emotional needs of a lovesick lad's paean in musical theater. The score was still brand new, and as odd as it sounds now in light of the wide-spread recognition of the depths of the Sondheim music, such talk wasn't unheard of. When I hear "Johanna" today, of course its richness is a given -- to my accepting and admittedly loving -- ear. So it's sometimes relative, this concept of emotional access via melody. And the role familiarity plays in what constitutes a satisfying melodic line.
I'm reminded of instances when a melody can seem almost too rich for the subject matter. This, too, is highly subjective, but for me CANDIDE is the definitive example. The show's vaudeville trappings, its clowns and outlandish plot turns, all true to Voltaire, don't necessarily -- I hedge here -- necessarily invite the richness that Bernstein bestows. The material is always strongest in concert -- and I've enjoyed every re-imagining (and I believe seen all of the major ones), to a point -- because the score is freed of the cartoon-like storyline. In even the best production, a song like "Make Our Garden Grow" is almost too beautiful for the simple resolution it serves. I again say "almost," because I'm always eagerly awaiting the chance to hear it well sung. It's the usually the reason I bought a ticket: the score. Oddly enough, I found it more moving in the recent Streisand concert, when the lyric was pitched rather baldly to environmental concerns. In the tale, the young lovers and their cadre have gone on a complicated journey, but they sing of optimism with the wide-eyed if tainted by circumstance innocence of youth. The song soars -- to me, above them, not among them. To me they lack sufficient dimension as characters to earn its depths. CANDIDE's book is always blamed for its relative failure; has any musical's libretto been so reworked? However it is staged, Bernstein's pile-on of melody is overwhelming to the senses, yet perhaps overshadows the characters' plight. Yes, I understand that the context is comic operetta. Still, the power in the melody is profound, in style at odds with Voltaire's satiric points. Our emotions are engaged by the music perhaps in ways the text never can come close. Again, at least to me.
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