Transcript Oklahoma!

The First Light of the Golden Age of the
American Musical: Oklahoma!
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Stella
Oklahoma!
• Richard Rodgers (composer) and Oscar
Hammerstein II (lyricist): the most consistently
fruitful and successful partnership
Other works:
Carousel, South Pacific
The King and I
The Sound of Music
• Written in 1943
• The longest running
Broadway musical of its
time, a record it held for
fifteen years
• Over 30,000 productions
worldwide in more than a
dozen languages.
Story of Oklahoma!
• Curly & Laurey: A couple do
not admit their love to each other
• Jud Frey: intervene between Curly& Laurey
• Will & Ado Annie & Ali Hakim
• Aunt Eller: provide wisdom, respectable
Golden Age of the American Musical
• 1940s~1960s
• Background: 1929 Stock Market Crash, Great
Depression, Entrance to WWII
• Get rid of the influence of
Show Boat" was the first musical to
traditional European
include show-within-a show numbers
operetta
• Try to form their own
American style musical:
Show Boat
Early Musical form
• Opening chorus :young and beautiful girls dress
in well designed costume
Ziegfeld Follies
• Opening songs and dances: no special meaning and not
relate to the story
0:33~1:35 2:16~3:25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_em
bedded&v=BjExqlkld3k#!
5:08~6:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_em
bedded&v=FyGhmbfd7rY#!
• Clear line between dance and drama
• Songs and dances: lack of characteristics, emotion
Reform
• Oscar Hammerstein II :
treat the subject frankly
• Innovation and challenge,
unlimited : more
elements the directions can
use to tell story
• Integration of song,
dance, character and plot
Song
• The songs must delving into characters and
advancing the plot
• Oklahoma! :
remove the opening chorus
replaced by the solo of Curly
“Oh What a Beautiful Morning”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNEUtN2
1cuU
• With the description of the golden dewdrop on
the meadow and followed by a series of
description of the scenes : lead audience in to
the world on the stage
Dance
• The early dance was only the combination of a
set of fix steps
• tell the audiences what can not told in lyrics and
songs by body movement
• Advance the plot not only show the movements
• The ballet in Laurey’s dream: her marriage to
Curly is interrupted by Jud knocking Curly
unconscious and carrying her off
• Dream: the inner world of Laurey-DVD
• The ballet provides a dreamlike non-reality and
the music accomplished through a seemingly
irrational medley of various tunes from the
show: “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” and
other songs
• Reality and non-reality:
predict at least one
possible outcome
American: National Identity
• Distraction from the hard life: playful and
hopeful songs
• The people in Oklahoma! overcome difficulties
and adversities: confidence and strength to help
rebuild a world ravaged by years of war
• “we know we belong to the land and the land we
belong to is grand”: it conveys the concept of
national identification
• “Oklahoma, ok”:
“the State of O.K.” →”the state of okay”
Bad thing will pass and everything will be fine
• Oklahoma! 1:06
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDVzbeDz
Rk
Thank you……