From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre
Subject: Re: Singing in musicals (was Re: "Company" in concert)
Date: 28 Jan 1993 17:53:38 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <C1IsM6.595@news.udel.edu> 
conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:
> 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." 

Me too.

> 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.

It had the same effect on me.  What I liked so much about 
"Pretty Lady", by the way, was how spare and simple it was.  
And there was one of Prince's coups de theatre in the
number, and I still don't know how he did it, nor can I
think of a way to describe it.  The sailors were looking
upstage at the pretty lady of the song's title when, by
turning slightly, they managed somehow to change the entire 
stage picture quite radically.  It was absolutely astonishing.
(I quite literally gasped.)

> 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."

Yes, yes, I know.  What can I say.  The very first album I
ever bought for myself (I was about 10) was Billie Holiday's
"Lady in Satin".  I loved and adored it.  (Still do.)  I'll
overlook almost any popular singer's vocal imperfections
provided he/she communicates.  But let a soprano sing "Sempre 
libera" without all those trills and I lose my temper.  

> Many
> roles demand rather modest vocal skills.  Hey, I'm not asking for
> Bjoerling and Melba in every role of a show.

Can you imagine Melba in "Gypsy"?  Bjoerling in "How to Succeed"?
What a hoot!

> 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.

I understand everything you say and I would have to say that
I'm in agreement with you in theory.  In popular music, though,
I'm not convinced that quality voice = quality singing.  If
it did, then Dolores Gray would be the best popular singer ever.

> Some musical-comedy people whom I find satisfying vocally: 

[edited]

> Angela Lansbury,

Her inability to sing always in tune doesn't bother you?

> Mandy Patinkin (in his skills if not always use he puts them to)

He's one of the more irritating singers around.  Has the man
no taste at all?  It's too bad "The Knife" wasn't videotaped.
A friend of mine said it was almost as funny as "Carrie".

> Carol Brice

I wouldn't say that Carol Brice is all *that* recent a singer.
She's in "The Grass Harp" after all.

I like almost all of the singers you mentioned, but there are
some people I would have added.  What do you think of Dolores
Gray, anyway?  And what about Susan Johnson?  I don't think
I've ever heard a better Broadway voice than Johnson's.

> 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). 

I was *joking* about Sergio Franchi in "Company".

> But Howard McGillin, or Cris Groenendaal, or Brent Barrett would
> all be on top of it vocally. 

I'd love to see Howard McGillin in the role: he even looks
right for it, I think.

> If one wants someone younger, in more of a
> pop vein, Scott Bakula might well have what it takes. 

Hmmm.  Yes, he might be able to pull it off.

> 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.

*Well*!

> >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).

Really?  Leonard (Frey) used to tell the story all the time.
Even better was his story about introducing Eva Marie Saint
to Ethel Merman.  E.M.S. told Ethel that she was currently
in rehearsals for "Candida".  When Ethel left, she said,
"Nice meeting you, Eve.  Good luck in Canada."

[Vanessa Redgrave and Charleton Heston:]
> >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).

I really don't like Heston at all.  And the joke he recently
told a friend of mine over dinner ("What do you get when you
lock a fag and a Jew in a closet for a year?  -- A musical.")
was, at best, insensitive.

> >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,

You?  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.

Well, maybe you *are* too easy to please!  I guess it's
just that I'm tired of seeing TV people in musicals out
here.  All sorts of stuff with Pam Dawber and Kate Mulgrew
and that type.

Arne
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre