Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 06:11 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - Michael_Portantiere 05:32 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| This much I know. I’d never heard “Come to Me, Bend to Me” before I heard PHANTOM for the first time. Lloyd Webber, at his best, really doesn’t have to steal. He’s got a pop composer’s instinct, which — in this score — helps the title song just come on like a freight train. It was fun to watch this again and re discover what a gear change that is, albeit less so with the newer orchestrations and far less drum machine. Lloyd Webber really does have some very, very elegant compositional touches here. In that sequence in the middle of “Masquerade,” Raoul & Christine reprise “Think of Me” with a lyric that’s a pretty well written conflict scene. It ends with “let’s not argue, you will understand in time” set above some appropriately brooding foreshadowing in the music, which then blends into a few measures reprising the Phantom’s freaky “I have brought you...”sequence just after “Music of the Night,” before spinning into a swirling waltz time change for the melody of “Masquerade.” All in a matter of maybe 32 bars. That isn’t just deft composition, it’s deft scenework, and Lloyd Webber & co. deserve credit for it. To that end, I failed to mention above how masterful some of Prince’s staging is. The way he gets, what, 8 people(?) around the stage on the reprise of “Notes / Twisted Every Way” is just terrific. Looks effortless. Sooooo isn’t. This concert doesn’t have a proscenium stage, so obvi the scenery and staging is adapted, but Maria Björnson did excellent work here. At the end of the day, I think I’m fine with this being Broadway’s longest running show. I do think LION KING or HAMILTON have a chance to outlast it, but there really is a lot about this show that absolutely works. - GMB |
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| re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? | |
| Last Edit: mikem 08:13 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
| Posted by: mikem 08:08 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - GrumpyMorningBoy 06:11 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| I think the first 20 minutes of Phantom are extremely well-done. The quiet beginning with the auction that intrigues us, the unveiling and lifting of the chandelier to sweeping music, the spectacle of the Hannibal opera, and then the laying out of our cast of characters. Then the Phantom appears as if by magic, and he takes Christine away. It does what it needs to do: sets the stage, gives us some spectacle, and makes us want to see what happens next. I think the rest of the show has very high points and parts that are not as strong, but I think the beginning is uniformly very strong. |
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| Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 03:59 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - mikem 08:08 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| I actually read the Gaston Leroux when I was in high school, and while I don't remember much of it now, I remember at the time being so surprised to learn how much the opening of the musical was its own unique creation. I agree. It really is quite, quite strong. Coming in, knowing nothing, I think you'd expect that the show would open with a whole lot of music and an introduction to scary dude who you follow as he finds his way to an opera house where he's bound to wreak havoc. Or, we'd open on some sort of horror movie cliche, with the banality of the day interrupted by a freaky jump scare. The entire first act up through "Music of the Night" really is pretty darn terrific. It could have easily gone very, very differently. (And indeed in Maury Yeston's version, it did!) - GMB |
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| re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. | |
| Posted by: mikem 01:44 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. - GrumpyMorningBoy 03:59 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| GMB, you've made me curious how Maury Yeston's Phantom opens. I'll have to look it up. I had the cast album for many years before I finally saw the show. The libretto in the recording is extremely detailed and includes the lines not included on the album, so I had a very strong vision in my head of the show before I actually saw it. The staging was even better than I had imagined, particularly the chandelier rising and the original appearance of the Phantom to Christine in the mirror. I agree that the show deflates a bit after Music of the Night. The Phantom and Christine have this big confrontation after she rips away his mask, and it basically peters out with him calmly saying something like, "Well, I guess I should take you back now because they're probably wondering where you are." It's kind of an anticlimactic end to the scene. And then the action jumps in time, so we never find out what the reaction was when Christine returns. Are they wondering where she is? What did Raoul think about her disappearing like that? What kind of excuse did she give? As far as I can remember, it's never addressed. |
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| re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 05:42 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. - mikem 01:44 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| "I had the cast album for many years before I finally saw the show. The libretto in the recording is extremely detailed and includes the lines not included on the album, so I had a very strong vision in my head of the show before I actually saw it. The staging was even better than I had imagined, particularly the chandelier rising and the original appearance of the Phantom to Christine in the mirror." I agree about the chandelier rising, but to this day, I still cannot believe how completely disappointing is the climactic scene of the chandelier "falling," and it's beyond me how the show ever became famous for such an ineffective effect. I do understand that safety reasons prevented a more realistic crashing of the chandelier, but I don't understand why anyone ever made a big deal over the way they wound up doing it, and why so few people have been vocal about what a huge letdown the actual effect is compared to the way it's described and the way one probably pictures it before seeing it. |
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| The Chandelier | |
| Posted by: LynnO 12:43 am EDT 04/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. - Michael_Portantiere 05:42 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| I agree the chandelier drop isn't very exciting, but I imagine that it was very exciting in 1986, before computers were ubiquitous. The updated computerized chandelier in Vegas was worth the price of admission alone... I describe it elsewhere in these threads. | |
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| re: The Chandelier | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:29 am EDT 04/23/20 | |
| In reply to: The Chandelier - LynnO 12:43 am EDT 04/21/20 | |
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| "I agree the chandelier drop isn't very exciting, but I imagine that it was very exciting in 1986, before computers were ubiquitous. The updated computerized chandelier in Vegas was worth the price of admission alone... I describe it elsewhere in these threads." I experienced the chandelier drop when PHANTOM first opened on Broadway, and I thought it was a tremendous letdown even then. But thanks for the note about the Vegas chandelier. I guess maybe now I remember reading about that when that production opened, but I had forgotten, and I never actually saw it. |
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| re: The Chandelier | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 02:23 pm EDT 04/23/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The Chandelier - Michael_Portantiere 12:29 am EDT 04/23/20 | |
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| I didn't see PHANTOM OF THE OPERA until the early '90's because it was such a hot and expensive ticket when it first opened and I was a poor high school/college student. But, I finally went in the early '90's because it was part of a rare Shubert subscription series at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia and the series was chock full of others things I also wanted to see. I saved up the money for that subscription and was rewarded with prime seats at PHANTOM, in the center within the first 10 rows. What got me about the chandelier drop was not the drop itself, but that it dropped and then somehow, before landing on the stage, swung back out over the audience, right at me, in fact. I didn't know it did that and wasn't expecting it. And it scared the hell out of me, just for an instant. |
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| re: The Chandelier | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 01:47 pm EDT 04/24/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The Chandelier - JereNYC 02:23 pm EDT 04/23/20 | |
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| "What got me about the chandelier drop was not the drop itself, but that it dropped and then somehow, before landing on the stage, swung back out over the audience, right at me, in fact." If my memory is correct, that swinging back out over the audience did NOT happen when I saw PHANTOM on Broadway. But that was right after the show opened, so I wouldn't be surprised if the effect has been tweaked and possibly improved on Broadway and in other productions since. |
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| re: The Chandelier | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 04:31 pm EDT 04/24/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The Chandelier - Michael_Portantiere 01:47 pm EDT 04/24/20 | |
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| The only other time I've seen the show was on Broadway, but it was close to 20 years ago and from the cheap seats in the back of the mezzanine that sold back then for $20. I don't remember if it happened at that performance, but I was probably too far back to really catch it anyway. | |
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| that chandelier | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 07:15 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. - Michael_Portantiere 05:42 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| Totally! It was hilarious to me when I finally saw the show in the early 2000s or late 90s... especially the slow speed and the way it falls as if being guided by a leg and right controller that have to be alternated for a safe landing. I also think the chandelier itself looks a bit unglamorous, the way it's designed. Not a very impressive chandelier... It looks like a UFO landing a bit more than a presumably 19th century opera house chandelier crashing down from the ceiling. |
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| re: that chandelier | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 09:44 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: that chandelier - Chazwaza 07:15 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| Completely! And don't you think it's insane how the effect has become so famous even though its so incredibly lame and anticlimactic? It's almost as if people misremember seeing a chandelier crashing the way that should look, rather than the way it actually looks. | |
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| re: that chandelier | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 09:59 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: that chandelier - Michael_Portantiere 09:44 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| The Dear World Effect. Maria Björnson was counting on it. |
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| After Music of the Night | |
| Posted by: LynnO 02:13 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Totally agree about how well-written PHANTOM's opening is. - mikem 01:44 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| After Christine rips off the Phantom's mask, he goes ballistic, but then literally crawls back, and she feels sorry for him and gives him his mask back. They usually have a tender moment of silence before the Phantom snaps back to the present and grabs her hand, saying, "Come, we must return! Those two fools who run my theatre will be missing you!" They have to get back because the Phantom has those plans to insert her in Il Muto. There isn't a jump in time, the show just switches to the Manager's office where they are lamenting that both sopranos have disappeared/left. Carlotta re-appears during that scene, and then Madame Giry and Meg enter and announce that Christine has returned, and she's resting. Then there is the debate on who will sing Il Muto, and they decide to have Carlotta sing it, hence "Prima Donna." To answer your questions, they do wonder where Christine went, but they all received notes from the Phantom explaining that he has her. Of course they are all perplexed and worried, that's all dealt with in the "Notes" song in the Manager's office described above. Christine didn't give an excuse for disappearing, the Phantom explained it in a note. |
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| re: After Music of the Night | |
| Posted by: mikem 10:21 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: After Music of the Night - LynnO 02:13 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| LynnO, thanks for correcting my faulty memory and perception. I didn't remember the lyrics after all this time, so I looked them up. I think I mistakenly thought there was a time jump because Carlotta accuses Raoul and Christine of being lovers when they've literally been in the same room for about 5 minutes since childhood at that point, but of course Carlotta doesn't know that even if we do. | |
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| re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? | |
| Posted by: tandelor 07:28 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - GrumpyMorningBoy 06:11 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| Last time I saw Phantom was because I wanted to see Norm Lewis. I had forgotten what a good show it really was and expected it to be creaky, which it wasn't. Watched the streaming version, and along with totally enjoying it I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the filming and the sound. Excellent. Thank you, Sir Andrew. I found it a real treat. | |
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| re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 07:28 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - GrumpyMorningBoy 06:11 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| ***Lloyd Webber really does have some very, very elegant compositional touches here. In that sequence in the middle of “Masquerade,” Raoul & Christine reprise “Think of Me” with a lyric that’s a pretty well written conflict scene. It ends with “let’s not argue, you will understand in time” set above some appropriately brooding foreshadowing in the music, which then blends into a few measures reprising the Phantom’s freaky “I have brought you...”sequence just after “Music of the Night,” before spinning into a swirling waltz time change for the melody of “Masquerade.” All in a matter of maybe 32 bars. That isn’t just deft composition, it’s deft scenework, and Lloyd Webber & co. deserve credit for it. *** I would phrase it differently and say I think ALW's instincts and talent as a musical dramatist are indeed excellent, far better than his purely musical instincts as a composers, and that's a major reason why his biggest hits have been so successful -- although that doesn't really apply to CATS :-) |
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| Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: peter3053 02:23 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Streaming PHANTOM — can we start a petition to fix Ramin Karimloo’s vowels? - Michael_Portantiere 07:28 pm EDT 04/18/20 | |
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| I wonder to what extent Lloyd Webber's dramatic instincts were refined by working with Prince on Evita and Phantom? It's often hard to know who brought what to the final feast, but Prince's ideas for Evita electrified the stage version, and the literalness of the movie sank it. Prince's rocking chair sequence for the generals was both theatrically and dramaturgically solid - setting up that sense of the wheel of fortune which brought the Perons up and then brought them asunder. It seems that Prince introduced the conflict into the scene which makes "Music of the Night" a dramatic song when it could have been a stage wait. I wonder how much actual structuring Prince did for the Phantom book. Even he says that it was always Lloyd Webber's idea to have the chandelier onstage at the start - and what a great effect that led to. I think that in Lloyd Webber's memoir he says that in the brief time Trevor Nunn came in as potential director of Phantom, Nunn's idea of the set was for the audience to see the show through the wings, so to speak - so the chandelier would go sideways. It seems to have been that sort of idea which made Lloyd Webber insist Mackintosh go back to Prince. Am I remembering rightly? Are any of Lloyd Webber's shows that were done without Prince as dramatically secure and suspenseful? I remember wanting to flee Aspects of Love before I fell into a Sleeping Beauty-like slumber for a hundred years; Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat leaves me feeling my brain has turned to marshmallow. Sunset Boulevard's songs tend to be stage waits - the action continues after them; it'd make a good non-musical movie if somebody like Billy Wilder directed it! But then, to pay him his credit, Lloyd Webber knew it needed to be sung-through, and it was Billy Wilder who apparently told Sondheim that it had to be an opera because it's about royalty - Hollywood royalty - which made Sondheim, who had just done Sweeney, turn off it. (If I remember my reading correctly.) Interestingly, Prince wanted to direct Superstar. I wonder what a Prince production of that would have been like - although I suspect we might get an inkling from his staging of Turandot for Vienna State Opera, captured on DVD - the most stunning and intriguing version of it I've seen; Pontius Pilate could have been up a stairway that tall! Nonetheless, having viewed the Albert Hall Phantom stream, one has to confess to being in awe of it as a composition both musical and dramatic, and of Lloyd Webber as progenitor. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 04:10 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:09 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - peter3053 02:23 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| Seth Rudetsky just had Andrew Lloyd Webber as a guest on his ''Stars in the House'' podcast, and Seth urged theater buffs to read Lloyd Webber's memoir, ''Unmasked.'' Seth says he was surprised to learn that many of the plot points in the musical came from Lloyd Webber himself. (If anyone has a copy of ''Unmasked'' handy, I'd love to hear what they were.) |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: larry13 10:32 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - peter3053 02:23 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| Sondheim discusses Sunset Boulevard on page 146 of LOOK, I MADE A HAT. His conversation with Wilder was about 1960, apparently the only time he ever considered making a musical of it and did any work on it. He states that he resisted the idea when it was raised after Sweeney Todd.(He also believes Wilder was right about it having to be an opera even after the ALW musical was produced.) "I had no desire to write an opera, which is a form I resist." Clearly, HE doesn't believe Sweeney is an opera. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 08:26 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - larry13 10:32 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| I believe Sondheim has also said that a musical theater work is an opera if it's performed in an opera house, or words to that effect. It's all semantics, but SWEENEY TODD does fulfill all the requirements and descriptions of an opera, even if you don't want to call it that. And for what it's worth, I don't see any reason why SUNSET BLVD. would need to be an "opera" that would need to be called an "opera," or why it would have to be any more of an "opera" than SWEENEY TODD is. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:58 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - larry13 10:32 am EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| I don't think Sweeney is an opera either. BUT just cause 1960s Sondheim had no interest in writing one doesn't mean late 1970s Sondheim didn't... I think Passion is the only musical he wrote that I'd consider verging on being opera. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 09:10 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Chazwaza 06:58 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| "I don't think Sweeney is an opera either. BUT just cause 1960s Sondheim had no interest in writing one doesn't mean late 1970s Sondheim didn't... " And on that note, I seem to remember it was reported that he was going to write, or was at least considering writing, a musical of SUNSET BLVD. for Lansbury some time before the Lloyd Webber one came to me. How much of that was just P.R. content and not based in truth, I of course cannot say. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: larry13 08:43 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Chazwaza 06:58 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| I agree with what you write about Sondheim in 1960 vs. late '70s in THEORY but...He wrote LOOK, I MADE A HAT in 2011 and there has never been any indication he ever changed his inclination towards writing an opera nor, really, his attitude towards opera, PORGY or his own PASSION or SWEENEY notwithstanding. | |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 09:26 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - larry13 08:43 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| Has Sondheim ever explained in any detail what exactly he means when he says he has no interest in writing an "opera," or in what way(s) exactly he doesn't consider SWEENEY TODD to be an opera? For those who would argue that the amount of spoken dialogue in SWEENEY makes it a musical rather than an opera, the fact is that several classic operas in French and German (if not so much in Italian) have a quite a lot of spoken dialogue, including CARMEN and THE MAGIC FLUTE, to name only two that come immediately to mind. Some have argued, and I understand the opinion, that the only way in which SWEENEY TODD is not a 100 percent, full-fledged opera is that the role of Mrs. Lovett is written for a type of voice that is never or almost never heard in operas that were written to be performed in opera houses. So maybe that's it? And/or maybe what Sondheim meant, at least in part, was that some people feel that, in traditional operas, the importance of the text is secondary to that of the music, and I guess it's easy to understand why Sondheim wouldn't want to write any work of which that could be said. I find it a fascinating and worthwhile discussion, even if I do think sometimes people get too caught up in semantics and the need for labels. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 03:24 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 03:14 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Michael_Portantiere 09:26 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| I don't really think any of the roles in Sweeney are written for opera voices... just because opera voices CAN do them doesn't mean they are meant for that kind of voice, or, more to the point, the kind of singing that singers trained in opera bring to whatever role they do. And the best performances of the show I've seen and/or heard never had opera singers in the roles. At least something like Candide is written for or complimented by that kind of singing and ability and in many sections requires singers to do that kind of singing whether they are "opera singers" or not (ex: Barbara Cook). And even that isn't full defined as an opera! (And frankly I think in almost every single case I've seen, including the most recent example of Renee Fleming in Piazza, but also all the opera Sweeney's I've heard, when opera singers do roles like this their training and instinct block their ability to act the lyrics fully/appropriately and/or make it too difficult to properly hear the words that are much more important in these kinds of musicals. As wonderful as Bryn Terfel sounds doing some sections of some of those songs, I would trade him out for Cariou or even Hearn any day) |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 05:51 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Chazwaza 03:14 pm EDT 04/20/20 | |
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| I agree with every word of your post immediately above, and I think it's likely that your excellent points are very much along the lines of what Sondheim may be thinking in terms of opera vs. musical. Whether or not it's primariy due to training, it does seem that relatively few opera singers have been effective in musical theater roles -- even in the sung sections, let alone the dialogue. For example, Terfel and Fleming are both considered in the first rank of acting ability in opera, but certainly not in musicals. Of course, there have been some notable exceptions, like Robert Weede :-) |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: larry13 10:24 am EDT 04/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Michael_Portantiere 09:26 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| Yes, Sondheim has explained his attitude toward opera in general and SWEENEY as not being one. On page 332 of FINISHING THE HAT, wherein he makes the aforementioned argument that "opera is something that is performed in an opera house in front of an opera audience," he opts for SWEENEY as being a "dark operetta," "the closest I can come" to labelling it. "'Opera' implies stentorian singing." It's worth reading all his references to opera: see the indexes to both volumes of his Collected Lyrics. The page 332 references I've excerpted are actually called "Sondheim's distaste for" in the index. On page 334 he states "a chance to sing excuses everything, even dramatic logic." Page 150 of FINISHING THE HAT has been cited in the index as "bombast and lack of clarity in opera." Page 146: "I have successfully avoided enjoying opera all my life." Page 147: he acknowledges his "condescension toward opera." There's much more, of course, on all these pages as to his thinking about opera. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: GavinLogan1 09:42 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - Michael_Portantiere 09:26 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| I argue that musicals and operas are the same thing: they are stories told using music. Just as there different singing styles in musical theatre, there are also several different styles in the world of opera. One rarely hears a Wagnerian soloist also appearing in a Mozart comic opera.... So it can't simply be the style of singing... I know I'll be flamed for this, or at least I think I will be, but I agree wholeheartedly with music critic Michael Walsh, who wrote in his book "Who's Afraid of Opera?" that there is no difference between the two genres. Even the word "opera" simply comes from the word opus, which means work: "They come from the Latin words OPUS & OPERA (plural). While the original meaning is closest to the Latin word No. 19 and the plural is in use mostly as a singular word meaning No. 1 (plural is operas), this root has become a word for any work which is planned, acted on, and carried through." As much work goes into a well-written musical as into an opera.... so... I don't know. I just can't see the distinction. |
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| re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:34 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Lloyd Webber's dramaturgy - GavinLogan1 09:42 pm EDT 04/19/20 | |
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| ****So it can't simply be the style of singing... I know I'll be flamed for this, or at least I think I will be, but I agree wholeheartedly with music critic Michael Walsh, who wrote in his book "Who's Afraid of Opera?" that there is no difference between the two genres. Even the word "opera" simply comes from the word opus, which means "work."**** I basically agree with all of that, and yes, it's good to be reminded that "opera" just means "work." But when people do attempt to draw distinctions, I imagine they're usually thinking of the differences between very traditional, quintessential, famous operas like those of Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner as compared to musicals with lighter, "pop" style music. But on that note, it's certainly interesting that so many musical theater works written in the rock idiom are called "rock operas," and nobody seems to object to that -- nor should they. I guess Sondheim's statement about how musical theater works are operas when they're performed in opera houses (if I have that quote correct, or at least its meaning even if I don't have it verbatim) is probably key here. Although there are, as you say, "operas" with many widely varying types of music, and the same is true of "musicals," there are going to be some basic differences in works that are written to be performed by unamplified singers performing with unamplified, large orchestras in large opera houses, as compared to works that are written to performed in much smaller Broadway theaters with smaller orchestras -- and even more so over the past 50 or 60 years, a period during which the level of amplification of both singers and orchestras in musicals has risen tremendously. All of which brings me back to my remark that what probably would be best is not for any of us to feel these works need to be strictly labeled to begin with -- though I do understand the impulse. |
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