Touche Suchet

Over at the Telegraph, Classic FM presenter and musical detective John Suchet has gathered his audience in the drawing room in an attempt to answer the Conundrum of Broadway:

"When I texted my friend that I was writing an article about West Side Story, she texted back, “My favourite modern musical-opera”, neatly encap­sulating the conun­drum: when does a musical become an opera?"

Musical-opera, eh?

"There is no definitive answer, of course, and you are entitled to your opinion. My view concurs with my friend’s. For me, West Side Story is a musical that qualifies as an opera"

Or is it an opera that qualifies as a musical? Come on, man. Poirot never sat on the fence like this.

"Interestingly, West Side Story’s composer, Leonard Bernstein, addressed a similar question himself in a television programme he made for CBS in the mid-Fifties. It was for the Omnibus series presented by Alistair Cooke, and it was a history of American musical theatre. In it, he asked: 'When is a particular work an operetta, and when is it an opera?' He took the example of South ­Pacific, and said when Emile sings Some Enchanted Evening we are hearing a musical, but when Bloody Mary sings Bali Ha’i we are indisputably in the world of opera."

Well, if he's talking about this Omnibus programme (South Pacific is discussed at the 6-minute mark) then he's not quite on the button. What Bernstein actually says is that "There is Nothing Like a Dame" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" belong to musical comedy, whereas "Bali Ha'i" is more romantic operetta. The point being that South Pacific represents a seamless mingling of the two forms.

"It’s to do with the tone, the sound, and most importantly the nature of the story. My Fair Lady could never be an opera..."

True, inspector, true. As the big fella goes on to explain, American musicals lie on a spectrum between low-brow vaudeville and high-brow opera. My Fair Lady, due to the high romance of its plot, tends towards the operetta end. But it's still a musical.

"Apply those criteria to West Side Story. The plot is deadly serious: two rival gangs on the streets of New York, two families at war, two lovers, one drawn from each family. You just know people are going to die."

Yes, and we call this tragedy, not opera.

"Using Leonard Bern­­stein’s analysis, the songs Maria or Somewhere belong in opera, whereas America and Gee, Officer Krupke belong in the world of the musical."

Using Bernstein's analysis, the songs may tend towards operetta or musical comedy but they are all part of the American musical theatre.

"The lyrics, too, support the musical genre – serious and they belong to opera; humorous and they belong to the musical."

Er, right. So Marriage of Figaro is a musical and Heathcliffe should play Glyndebourne? By the way, I think the good detective means "solemn" rather than "serious". Comedy, as everyone knows, is a very serious business. Especially lyricists like Big Steve:

"On the subject of lyrics, a few years ago we honoured one of the world’s greatest lyricists, Stephen Sondheim, at the Royal Academy of Music...I don’t think he would disagree if I said he was not in the most amenable of moods. He had had a bout of ill health and the trans­atlantic journey took more of a toll than it used to.

I said to him, rather too syco­phantically, that I regarded his lyrics as poetry. I quoted my favourite couplet, which happened to come from West Side Story: 'Say it loud and there’s music playing / Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.' He said he had never been happy with that couplet. 'The rhyme is too obvious. Banal. I wish I had rewritten it.' I wonder if he really meant it."

I suspect he really, really did. Unless he was still jet-lagged when he wrote the notes for his collected lyrics, Finishing the Hat, in which he describes the praying line as contributing to the "overall wetness of the lyric". Not only that but Tony, the character who sings "Maria" in the show, was originally intended to a Polish Catholic which would have given the whole thing an interesting religious overtone. But the ethnicity of Tony was later changed which made the praying stuff wetter still.

Talking about Big Steve, it's worth pointing out his own general assessment of the show: "For most people West Side Story is about racial prejudice and urban violence, but what it's really about is theater: musical theater, to be more precise" (Finishing the Hat, p. 25). And the more musical-comedy type numbers like "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" served "to remind the audience that this is an entertainment, not a sociological treatise". So I suspect that he'd be on the musical side of this debate.

As an aside to this aside, it's also an interesting way to think about Sondheim's work. The conventional line is that he expanded the kinds of subject matter that musicals dealt with, from gang violence in West Side Story to French surrealist art in Sunday in the Park with George. But, in another and more curious way, I sometimes think that his work has narrowed the outlook of musicals. A lot of it is theatre about theatre.

Anyway, back to the DI Suchet:

"So if West Side Story, like South Pacific, is opera in parts, musical in parts, does the standing of the composer have any bearing on whether we can class either as classical music?"

No. Bernstein was a posh symphony conductor, Rodgers was a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith. Doesn't matter. Musical theatre has room for both which is part of its wonder as an art form.

"If West Side Story were to be staged at the New York Met, or at the Royal Opera House, who would argue against it?"

Not me. Then again, if Jose Carreras' version of "Something's Coming" is anything to go by, who would want to see it? Although Bryn Terfel having a crack at the opening dance would be interesting.

But the broader objection to the article is the assumption that musicals get some kind of legitimacy by being called opera. As the sub-heading puts it, does West Side Story deserve a "promotion"? No, it doesn't. And it doesn't need one. Bernstein may have written symphonies, concertos and ballets but, as a composer, it is West Side Story that has proved to be his most enduring work.

Case closed.

Possibly the Shortest Musical Ever Written

Very edible post from The Larder promoting the idea of a Festival of Tiny Musicals with each lasting around 6 minutes. The idea is that writers, rather than doing a 15-minute showcase of a larger work that struggles to get produced, should think small. New writers in particular need to start somewhere and, if it's your first time in the kitchen, then it's far easier to bake a cupcake than a triple-decker marbled chocachino sponge.

Personally I like the idea. I have no clue as to the kind of a musical that would last 6 minutes and that's precisely why I like it. It offers something new. That's not to say that I have a problem with the traditional two-act book musical. Some of my best friends are traditional two-act musicals. But that's a tough ask for a new writer. And, as with any tradition, the past can be a burden on the present. 

Comedians have sketch shows, novelists have short stories, poets have haiku. Bring on the miniature musical.

With this in mind I present "Mouse and Cat", a home-made musical straight from the oven which may possibly be the shortest musical ever written (although I'm open to correction).

 

Big

This is extraordinary:

"On the studio lot below, along a route where trams of tourists roll by, is a black-and-green poster for the hit musical “Wicked.” Universal is the majority investor in the show, which has grossed $3 billion since 2003 from productions in New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo, and dozens of other cities. More to the point: “Wicked” is on track to become the most profitable venture in the 101-year history of Universal, Mr. Horowitz acknowledged in an interview, more lucrative than its top-grossing movies like 'Jurassic Park' and 'E.T.'"

Think about this for a moment. One of the oldest of Hollywood studios and the studio behind Steven Spielberg's box office smasheroos and its biggest money-spinner is a piece of musical theatre.

When musicals go big, they really do go big.

Are Musicals Cool?

Interesting discussion notes from last year's Musical Theatre Network conference during which Eliott Davis, co-writer of Loserville, answered a question on how to make musical theatre cool (page 7):

"I was asked to give a talk to disadvantaged young people just before a performance of Loserville. Really excluded, hard-core, never been in a theatre and they were coming to see Loserville in Leeds and I thought this is going to be a disaster. What was amazing to me – I think what’s cool is knowing what you are and not pretending to be something that you’re not. So if you’re trying to be cool, that feels very uncool to me. And for those kids sitting in front of me, I was absolutely touched; they thought it was a rock concert and then when it was quiet and when it was dramatic they shut up, they listened to the play. And to me, that was cool. They had a great time and the feedback afterwards was that they genuinely had a great time. They’d never been in a theatre before, they’d never seen a musical before and it didn’t matter, they had a good time. And so I think it’s not about rap or hip hop or any genre, it’s about presenting your art in the truest possible sense and not talking down to your audience. That seems to be cool."

Well said.

It's an elusive quality but musicals are, on the whole, not cool. If musicals appeared on Top Gear's Cool Wall most would be positioned somewhere near the Fiat Panda.

So what is cool? Well, it isn’t respectability (Sondheim isn’t cool) and it isn’t popularity (Lord Andy is far from cool). On the other hand, I'd say that George Gershwin and Cole Porter are pretty cool; less so Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Richard Rodgers was cool with Lorenz Hart but not with Oscar Hammerstein II. Urbane wit is cooler than popular sentimentalism.

And what of the shows? Some recent attempts have been made to invert the principle of cool by ironically revelling in geek chic (Glee), soap opera pop (Mamma Mia) or liberal sixties nostalgia (Hairspray). But these examples are merely the defiance of cool, not its attainment.

By my count there is only one genuinely cool musical and that is Chicago. What makes it cool? For one thing, it’s sexy and involves a lot of people dancing around in their underwear. For another, it’s funny and not in a Michael McIntyre way but in a more cynical kind of a way (McIntyre is funny but definitely not cool). The only other partially cool musical is Cabaret in its film version. The coolness of the stage show is seriously compromised by the fact that it contains a song about a pineapple.

So the initial conclusion from this staggeringly comprehensive and scientific survey is that, in order for a musical to be cool, it has to have cynicism, jokes, underwear and Kander and Ebb songs. That sounds like a pretty cool way to spend an evening.

The real conclusion, however, is Mr. Davis'. No amount of rap or hippity hop will make musicals cool. New musical writers shouldn't worry about being cool and should instead seek to be authentic. Authenticity is where it's at.