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Opera Companies Doing Musicals

4K views 22 replies 10 participants last post by  deggial 
#1 ·
Anyone else sensing this trend or is this unique to Chicago? This year the Lyric Opera tacked a non-subscription production of "Oklahoma" to the end of the season and last year "Show Boat" was part of the subscription season. These are billed as full productions with the considerable resources of the opera house behind them and faithful to the original scoring. Both shows seem to have gotten alot more local media play than their standard opera productions tend to.

I've noticed some American summer festivals (Central City, Aspen, Glimmerglass just to name a few) doing this too.

Given a choice, I'd still pick Aida over "Annie Get Your Gun", but I guess I've warmed to the idea. If it gets notoriety and attracts the attention of folks who might not otherwise venture into the opera house, it's a good thing. And certainly some of the classic musicals merit the opera house treatment. I haven't attended any of the Chicago productions, but I did attend a festival production of West Side Story, and it was a treat to have a full orchestra in the pit rather than the skeleton crew or synthesized sounds typical of modern productions.
 
#3 ·
To be clear, I'm not talking about multi-use opera venues or opera houses that occasionally host non-opera events. I'm talking about nominally musical theater pieces produced by the opera company, under their name, and promoted as an integral part of the opera season.

This year's "Oklahoma" presented as an add-on rather than part of the regular subscription series (as "Showboat" was) seems to a happy medium. Interestingly, it's being presented on a 7-show-a-week Broadway type schedule rather than the more spread out ~2-show-a-week opera schedule. It will definitely be interesting to hear how it works out financially for them.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Not at all a fan, yet of their sort, these are great popular pieces, from an era when the pit orchestra was often forty or more players. There is a dearth of that in contemporary Broadway productions, and even less 'full use' of both voice and orchestral palette in the newer works.

These are also clearly NOT part of any subscription season, so 'using the house and the performers' for another function is a win / win situation.

For those who want the 'original' productions of these older and larger Musical Theater pieces, this is the place to hear them done 'as they were,' full orchestrations, singers who did not use microphones, staging, etc.

Repeating that I'm generally not a fan: even if you are also not a fan, I'd urge you to recognize these are a large part of 'sophisticated' American popular musical culture, and I believe strongly, as long as they are not a substitute for other classical music, they more than deserve a decent presentation. Such presentations only pull up the now lowered standards and expectations of the current state of musical theater.

Go to a contemporary Broadway production: there are but a handful of actual acoustic musicians in the pit, a synthesizer is used to 'fill out' that pit band with samples, brass, string section pads, etc. The entirety is heavily over-amplified, the singers amplified, the whole under the watchful ears of a 'mix' control engineer, sometimes with auto tune and auto cut-offs re: the singers intonation and dynamic balance -- blech :-/

Compare that to singers who can sing, a real pit orchestra, the fuller orchestrations of those shows, and then 'reviving' these things for the public becomes a real service -- many do not know what they were missing until they hear such a production, and of that audience, some would never be in an opera house for anything more 'opera' like.

not at all a bad thing in my book, though if you gave me a ticket, my personal level of interest would be to give it to someone upon whom that seat is not wasted :)
 
#6 ·
I have no problem with that. Many musicals were originally staged without any amplifications and you really need to have a well trained singers. Showboat recording with Ramey, Stratas, von Stade, Hadley also showed that it is very well suited to opera singers, at least those who can scale down their voice sing in a more musical style, not like what Carreras or Te Kanawa did in West Side Story!.

My only caution would be that not every musical will work in a large auditorium like Civic Opera House or the Met.
Showboat works well I think in large theater. I saw Carousel at Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center with Shirley Verrett.
In a small inimate space, it was fantastic but I feel that much would be lost if it is moved into the Met.
 
#11 ·
My only caution would be that not every musical will work in a large auditorium like Civic Opera House or the Met. Showboat works well I think in large theater. I saw Carousel at Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center with Shirley Verrett. In a small inimate space, it was fantastic but I feel that much would be lost if it is moved into the Met.
Y'know I've been assuming performances are unmic'ed, this being the Lyric Opera and all, but I was mistaken. That's a deal breaker for me. It also occurred to me that we have a well-established company here (Light Opera Works) that fills the niche for traditional productions of musicals with full orchestra in a more appropriate 1000 seat venue.

I've also learned that this will be the first of five post-season Rogers & Hammerstein productions by the Lyric Opera over the next five years. I absolutely do support the effort, though I like that the post-season format gives opera purists the ability to opt-out. Heck, I'll probably go see their 'South Pacific' when it comes around.
 
#7 ·
My first exposure to musical theater as an immensely pleasurable pastime was in Fiddler on the Roof, which I saw in my twenties in Lexington, Kentucky. It was really astonishingly fun. I later wound up in San Francisco and tried to pursue the idea a bit there, with no success. The shows I selected did nothing for me.

But really, I'm an opera SNOB. I look down on musicals. It's irrational; they're perfectly worthwhile, there's no "higher good" that opera serves; I know all that. That doesn't change how I feel. I would be embarrassed if the Met suddenly started doing musicals. But I would probably go anyway, with a sneaking sense of guilty shame. I would admit to no one that I had been. :lol:
 
#8 ·
I understand you, guythegreg. But i don't look down on musicals. I don't consider myself snob. I grew up with musicals because of my family (my father was the exception that showed me Bach, who, above everything, he adored. And he also taught me a bit of what opera is.) From where i grew up there is no opera houses, however musicals are common. Thus i saw, as a kid, several musicals.

Musicals are simply enjoying the music as it is. I enjoy Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom the most. I don't look up for imperfections nor i compare with opera. I enjoy the play and the music. I'm aware however that not everybody has the capacity to understand an opera.

And if musicals put food on the table of those who work in this business. Then musicals have a higher good. People first. Opera and other high arts come after.
 
#10 ·
Fan of both genres

Since my wife and I are fans of both genres, we have no problem with lt. Washington opera will be doing Showboat and we are and are planning to see it.
 
#13 ·
From the listings I've seen for a number of European opera houses -- both larger ones and the small, regional theaters -- it's not uncommon for them to include musicals in their season schedules. The opera company where I live only stages four productions a year, and all of them are operas. If the season program were considerably larger, I might attend a musical. It would depend what's being performed.
 
#23 ·
:mad:

limelightmagazine said:
Terracini attempted to contradict the Equity claim citing casting and financial motives. "When you're paying someone for 12 months, you can't have them sitting there and not singing," Terracini told The Australian on Saturday. "You will put them into things that, often, they are not suited for, because you simply have to use them. It's not good for singers, it's not good for the audience and it's not good for the company."
^ somehow I don't think it's that simple. It's not like they can hire the entire cast by production. Pretty lame attitude.
 
#21 ·
We get this occasionally here, with Houston Grand Opera. The 2013-14 season includes "A Little Night Music" in its regular lineup. It's done to boost revenue, as Americans are normally receptive to well-produced Broadway-style quality level musicals.

When you look at the actual differences between musicals and opera, there really aren't many: 1- spoken dialogue vs sung recitative, and 2- performers being miked vs no mike. Other than that, it's just a case of the quality of the music, and there are plenty of awful operas and plenty of good musicals out there.

I don't much care for musicals, solely due to the lower quality of the music. After all, if you consider Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner, how many Broadway composers compare? Gershwin maybe?

But of course I don't like all opera either. I'm fairly picky.
 
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