*Years ago, I was sitting at the bar at Sardi's with a gent, whose portrait was nearby on one of the walls. I'm not sure if this is true, and it's the only time I ever heard it, but we were discussing the show "Nine" original cast, and he said that shows put the keys like a half-step (or a whole step) above someone's optimal tessitura, to make it somewhat harder for them so as to register for the audience more as "excitement". *
I haven't heard it phrased that way exactly, but I have heard that, in the era before body mics and high-level voice amplification, keys tended to be placed at the very top of a performer's vocal range to aid in projection and audibility. I have a very clear memory of Robert Morse telling me, during an interview, that Frank Loesser would bring the lead actors into a Broadway theater -- ideally, the theater where the show would be playing -- to set the keys there. And I thought that really spoke to the brilliance of Loesser. |
