Transcript Musical Theater - Doral Academy Preparatory

America’s Musical Landscape
6th edition
Part 5
Music for Theater and Film
Chapter 17: Musical Theater
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Music and Theater: Historical and
Cultural Perspective
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Music and theater create a union greater than the
sum of its parts
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Long history – back to ancient Greek choruses
The mutual attraction of music and drama
remains as strong today as it was in ancient times
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Music and Theater: Musical
Theater in America
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America’s earliest professional musical
performances
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mostly operas and operettas imported from England or Europe
British Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operettas were favorites
Early American productions
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included some based on British ballad operas
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incorporated popular songs into melodramatic stage
presentations
The Black Crook – first notable American musical
Little Johnny Jones – first American musical comedy
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Music and Theater: Broadway
Musicals
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The Broadway musical stage reflected changing
styles and mores
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George Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing was a political satire
His Porgy and Bess offered a sympathetic view of Negro life in Charleston
Jerome Kern’s Showboat and Pins and Needles were social commentaries
Late 20th century British invasion
Predominantly white and mainstream
Popularity of revivals
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Music and Theater: Opera
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Today’s musicals and operas are nearly
interchangeable
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Many American operas based on stories of
American life, legend, or current events
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Others based on popular Italian operas
Some current Broadway shows are largely sung
throughout, as in opera
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Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King
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Music and Theater: Films
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Several outstanding Broadway composers worked
on Hollywood films
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Adapting old musicals
Writing new musical scores
Movie musicals are making a comeback
Audiences continue to fill theaters and movie
houses and buy recordings of theater music
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Despite the glut of entertainment available on video, computers and
television
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Chapter 17: Musical Theater
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Chapter 17: Musical Theater:
Variety Shows
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Vaudeville
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Invented by Tony (Antonio)
Pastor (1837-1908)
Shared characteristics of
minstrel shows, but involved different performers
Featured a variety of entertainment such as circus stunts,
jugglers, songs, dances
Team of Harrigan and Hart depicted scenes of everyday
life in America
Chicago – 1975 Broadway musical that celebrated the
vaudeville tradition
New or postmodern vaudevillians are younger
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Variety Shows: Burlesque
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A type of variety of show that ridicules something important –
a kind of satire
Strip shows were included between acts
1920s – Burlesque had degenerated to strip shows
Sugar Babies (1979) – Broadway show highlighting the best
of early burlesque
Burlesque on television
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Saturday Night Live
The Jerry Springer Show
Burlesque is no longer a fading form
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Variety Shows: Revues
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A form of a variety show in which scenes
are related by a common theme
Ziegfeld Follies – Most popular of all revues
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Extravagant staging and costumes
Celebrated the American girl
Recent revues are based on the music of
one composer
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Side By Side by Stephen Sondheim
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Variety Shows: Operetta
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A story told in speech and song with an integrated plot
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Sometimes called “light opera, ” includes songs, dances,
instrumental pieces
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Gilbert and Sullivan –
 Gilbert’s patter songs ridiculed politics in humorous
rhyming words
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Sullivan’s music poked fun at opera
American Operettas
 John Philip Sousa composed fifteen operettas
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Musical Comedies
These new musical show were gaudy, boisterous
productions
 George M. Cohan (1878-1942)
Child of vaudeville performers
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Little Johnny Jones (1904)
considered the first real
musical comedy
Composed hits such as
Give My Regards to Broadway
and Yankee Doodle Boy
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Listening Example 59
This piece from Cohan’s first
full-length show, Little
Johnny Jones, is usually
considered to be the first
musical comedy. The plot
concerns a jockey who is
accused of throwing a race.
Give My Regards to Broadway
(from Little Johnny Jones)
By George M. Cohan (1878 – 1942)
Listening Guide page 299
Meter: Duple
Tempo: Brisk
Form: Verse-chorus
Timbre: Male vocalist (Al Jolson) accompanied by theater orchestra
and chorus
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Black Musical Theater
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African Americans were influential on Broadway
Will Marion Cook (1869-1944) – composed for
several black shows including In Dahoney (1903)
Shuffle Along (1921) – Broadway hit which
included Josephine Baker, who was later a star in
Paris, in the cast
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Revived interest in black musical theater
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Jerome Kern’s Show Boat
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Jerome Kern was a Tin Pan Alley songwriter
Wrote several successful Broadway shows
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Collaborated with Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse
Show Boat (1927) – landmark show with lyrics by
Oscar Hammerstein II, focused on interracial
relations
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Had an integrated plot based on a novel by an established
author, Edna Ferber
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Literature-based musicals didn’t become common for years
Called both a musical and an operetta
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Golden Age of Broadway Musicals
(1930-1955)
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Irving Berlin’s Watch Your Step (1914)
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Famous dance couple Irene and Vernon Castle
sparked a dance craze
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George Gershwin’s Lady Be Good (1924) –
featured great song and dance
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After 1929 sound movies became popular
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Listening Example 60
Singers including Robeson
have altered the original
lyrics of this song to avoid
the racial terms commonly
used in the composers’ time.
Ol’ Man River (from Show Boat)
Composer Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)
Listening Guide page 303
Meter: Verse: Triple. Chorus: Quadruple.
Texture: Homophonic
Timbre: Bass voice (Paul Robeson) accompanied by string orchestra
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Rodgers and Hart
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Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) – songwriter
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Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) – lyricist
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On Your Toes (1936) – Rodgers and Hart musical
featuring choreographer, George Balanchine, who
designed dance steps to integrate with the drama
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Pal Joey (1940)
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Rodgers and Hammerstein
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Oklahoma! – The product of a new collaboration between
Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II
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Carousel (1945)
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King and I (1951)
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South Pacific (1949)
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The Sound of Music (1959)
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Expansion of the Broadway
Musical
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Frank Loesser (1910-1969) – composer of
Broadway shows that required a
heightened sense of singing
Lerner and Loewe – famous Broadway
team (lyricist and composer)
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Brigadoon
Camelot
My Fair Lady
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Leonard Bernstein
(1918-1990)
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Pianist, composer, conductor
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Adapted On the Town from ballet
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Composed Broadway masterpiece West Side
Story (1957) featuring heightened use of dance
with choreography by Jerome Robbins
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Ensemble – several characters present their own
point of view, singly and collectively
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Listening Example 61
West Side Story, based on
Romeo and Juliet, is set in
modern times (New York City
in the 1950s).
Tonight (from West Side Story)
Composer Leonard Bernstein (191801990)
Lyricist Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930)
Listening Guide page 309
Meter: Changing
Texture: Homophonic/polyphonic
Timbres: Vocal soloists, solo and choral ensembles, and orchestra
Notice how sophisticated rhythms and changing meters lend
excitement to the finale.
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Stephen Sondheim
(b. 1930)
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Intended to compose concert music, but drawn to Broadway
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962)
Follies (1971) – parodies the Ziegfeld Follies
A Little Night Music (1973)
Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) – a
musical about murder and cannibalism
Company – a “concept musical” which addresses
controversial subjects
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Listening Example 62
Although a critical success,
audiences criticized A Little
Night Music for not having
enough “good” songs.
Every Day a Little Death
(from A Little Night Music)
Composer and Lyricist Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930)
Listening Guide page 311
Meter: Quadruple
Form: A B A
Texture: Homophonic
Timbre: Female vocal duet, accompanied by orchestra
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More Black Musicals
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The Wiz – a black interpretation of The
Wizard of Oz
A black version of Guys and Dolls
Bubbling Brown Sugar – all black revue
featuring music by “Fats” Waller, Duke
Ellington and Eubie Blake
Dream Girls – a show based on the
experiences of the Supremes
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The Music of Musicals
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Use of jazz, country-western, blues
Use of rock music
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Use of indie rock
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Hair , Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Mama Mia
Spring Awakening
Use of Latin and hip-hop
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Def Poetry Jam
In the Heights
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Current Trends
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Revivals of shows including Cabaret (1998) and
Oklahoma (2002)
From film to Broadway
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The Producers
The Lion King
Effects other than music
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Increasing interest in
multi-media shows
Audience involvement
Dance
Concern for addressing children (Cats, Beauty and the
Beast)
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