Perhaps we're ready for some Historically Informed Broadway. All of this
discussion of original vs. tweeked calls to mind that the Carmen that we
here is not Bizet's, but Guiraud's. I also heard that whenever Cherubini's
Medea is heard nowadays it's rarely in Cherubini's version, but in one with
recitative replacing the spoken dialogue. Not always the best choice.
Aaron J. Rabushka
[email protected]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Smith" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Finale] O.T. Secco recitatives
On Mon May 24, at MondayMay 24 12:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 24 May 2010 at 12:51, John Howell wrote:
I take
"Oklahoma!" as the tipping point, even though "Showboat" had tended
that way earlier (and significantly with the help of Hammerstein).
Hmm. The Showboat issue is quite complicated. There exist about 5
distinct versions of the show. It was tinkered with quite extensively
in revivals and in the movie versions, and really think most of the
"innovations" are later tweaks to the original (at least, in
comparison to the original of Oklahoma).
The social conscience part of Showboat (stories sympathetic to black
principal characters, black actors and white in the same scene and
singing the same song) were part of the original, I think. Please correct
me if I'm wrong, but I got a look at an original engraving of the
Showboat score, and I think I remember this stuff. You may be right about
dramatic innovations.
Christopher
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
