| re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:53 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
| In reply to: re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney - bobby2 12:12 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| Cariou's voice was fine at the end of the year. In fact, in some portions of the score, he was singing better than on opening night. In "Epiphany," he no longer had the vocal power he'd had originally but he was fine. It may be that the sound guy was still following Prince's instruction after the dress rehearsal to keep Cariou's body mike off during "Epiphany" because he didn't need it (and the sound guy responded, "It was off"). At a certain point in the run, the sound guy should have disregarded that instruction (if, indeed, he was still following it), but it wasn't like Cariou wasn't coming through. It just wasn't as vocally powerful. Cariou had some problems during previews because they were using potting soil for the grave, and it got on his vocal cords. It was doing real damage to his cords, but he refused to miss performances. They changed what they were using for the dirt in the grave. He has said that because of the problems from the potting soil, he had acute laryngitis at the time the the cast recording was made. But he still generally sounded fine. It seems that he did run into problems at certain points during the run, but so did George Hearn when he did it (or so Lansbury said). Cariou went on to do other things rather than the Sweeney tour. He filmed The Four Seasons, and he was back at Stratford, Ontario, in the spring of 1981, while the tour was still going on. Lansbury had not wanted to do the tour either, and they really had to work to persuade her. (There's a story about this that I've told here before.) At one point, it seemed like Estelle Parsons might do it instead. I am also very sorry indeed that Cariou did not do the tour as I feel he gave the greatest male performance I've ever seen in a musical, although I am very glad to have the two videos we have of his performances from Stratford — as Petruchio and Prospero — that he might not have done if he'd done the tour. I guess I'll add that I doubt he could have done the roles he did at Stratford in 1981 and 1982 if he had blown his voice. Those roles also included Coriolanus, Brutus and Sergius in Arms and the Man. Admittedly, singing is different, but if you're doing Petruchio and Coriolanus in rep, and then the following year you're doing Prospero, Brutus and Sergius in rep, you've got to have a voice. I remember Michael Feingold reviewing several productions in the 1982 season and writing something like, "When Len Cariou as Brutus thunders 'Hence!', people get hence in a hurry." He certainly did go on to have vocal problems, and they seem to have started during Dance a Little Closer. Perhaps damage had been done during the Sweeney run because of what had happened during previews, but it took a while before the damage became a major problem. |
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