| re: The movie Foul Play | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 07:26 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:22 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The movie Foul Play - dramedy 11:17 am EDT 08/31/20 | |
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| New York City Opera is the company seen in the movie, and they used to do G and S. Lyric Opera of Chicago did Mikado in 2010. Here is an excerpt from a Windy City Times review that may help explain why companies in particularly large houses don't do G and S more often. "The problems begin when the voices are not singing. After seeing G&S for 40 years in many different theaters, I've concluded that G&S is far too dialogue-driven for a vast opera house. Even with amplification, it just doesn't work." Most G and S operas were written for the Savoy in London (hence, Savoyards), a theatre that seats under 1,200. Yes, opera companies in theatres seating 2,000 or more have done musicals, and dialogue is often a problem. Often (not always) when opera companies do musicals, they are the more serious ones. But G and S wrote comedies. The dialogue is funny. The lyrics are funny. The words need to be heard and understood crisply (not with echo or some fuzziness). And perhaps more than with Sondheim or Rodgers and Hammerstein, the lyrics can easily get lost because the tessitura of the vocal lines is generally higher, which pretty much has to lead to less precise diction and altered vowels. Lyric of Chicago did do its series of productions of musicals in recent years, including some that have a good deal of comedy in them. Because they were broadcast on radio, we can hear how the comedy landed. Pretty well, at least sometimes. I am so grateful in particular for the Oklahoma! broadcast, which I love (despite some uneven casting). I think it may also be that nowadays it is believed, probably correctly, that the classic American musicals will sell better in opera houses than G and S. G and S probably doesn't sell as it did even 20 years ago. |
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