From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Singing in musicals (was Re: "Company" in concert)
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:03:42 GMT

In article <1k4d4iINNcqv@mizar.usc.edu> 
adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:

>I, too, was in awe of much of Pacific Overtures.  I still
>remember the staging for "Pretty Lady", which, to use an
>expression current at the time, blew me away.

The one which (to use another expression of the time) wiped me out was
"Someone in a Tree."  On records, interesting in its repetitiveness
perhaps, but otherwise nothing special.  Onstage, instantly gutwrenching
and tear-inducing in its access to emotions I still can't explain.

Arne asks:
>> >Good heavens, Jon, what do you look for in a 
>> >Broadway singer?  

>> As good a voice as I can get, and as the music demands.

>Interesting difference between us.  I am unbelievably
>severe when it comes to opera (as should be clear from
>what I wrote about Cuberli on rec.music.classical).  I
>am much more forgiving in pop music.  In fact, I rather
>like "imperfect" voices in musicals.

Remember that I did say "as good a voice as the music demands."  Many
roles demand rather modest vocal skills.  Hey, I'm not asking for
Bjoerling and Melba in every role of a show.  But when a composer writes
in extended tessitura, or long exposed lines, or a line where emotional
resonance needs to be carried through vocal means, or a big full-voiced
jump (as in "Never Will I Marry," a minor 10th up mid-phrase) -- then I
like to hear the implications carried out in the quality of the singing.
Most of time, singing seems not to be recognized as an important
discipline in casting, and this does bother me.

Some musical-comedy people whom I find satisfying vocally: Alfred Drake,
John Raitt (though I found his personality offputting), Patricia
Morison, Patricia Gillette, John Cullum, Richard Kiley, Angela Lansbury,
Barbara Cook, Julie Andrews in her younger days, Laurence Guittard, Hal
Linden.  And more recently Howard McGillin, Mandy Patinkin (in his skills 
if not always use he puts them to), Judy Kaye, Meg Bussert, David
Carroll, Cris Groenendaal, Liz Callaway, Carol Brice, Patti Cohenour,
Rebecca Luker, George Dvorsky, Brent Barrett, Richard Muenz, Richard
White, Paige O'Hara.  There are many more whom I've forgotten, and many
others whom I enjoy even if I couldn't give them a vocal blue ribbon.

As for the role of Bobby: it sits right up there in the same region as
the modern baritenor lead roles like the Phantom, Jean Valjean, Georges
Seurat, or Baron von Geigern.  I'm not asking for Sergio Franchi
(actually he needed Guido in NINE transposed down, and that goes only to
G).  But Howard McGillin, or Cris Groenendaal, or Brent Barrett would
all be on top of it vocally.  If one wants someone younger, in more of a
pop vein, Scott Bakula might well have what it takes.  But I dislike
hearing ugly strained singing such as Dean Jones offers passed off as
"characterization" when it's just bad singing.  I don't find the latter
any more delightful in musicals than in opera.

>Stritch looked surprised, and then started howling with
>laughter: she had thought "a piece of Mahler's" was a 
>type of pastry, or a pastry shop.

I've heard Stritch tell this story on herself (on tv).

>> >I'm thinking back on all this kind of casting in LA.  Lots of washed 
>> >up has-beens or never-weres.  Priscilla Lopez in Irma la Douce!  There's 
>> >magic!  You like Shakespeare?  How about Macbeth, with Charleton Heston 
>> >and Vanessa Redgrave?  

>> I'd see Vanessa Redgrave in anything.  The idea of the two of them
>> together, though, is fairly mind-boggling given what we know of their
>> respective politics. 

>Not just their politics, but their acting styles.  She was
>a brilliant Lady Macbeth.  He was not very good.  

Still, she agreed to work with him again, on his telefilming of "A Man
for All Seasons" (which I confess to finding rather good).

>Oh, I was just being snide.  We get lots of TV and movie people
>in huge productions of things here.  Richard Chamberlain in
>Richard II, for instance.

Again, maybe I'm too easy to please, but I found Chamberlain's TV
production of HAMLET (unfortunately severely abridged for Hallmark Hall
of Fame) to be about the most satisfying I've seen.  I wish someone
would bring it out on video.

Jon Alan Conrad