“A Song for You ” The musical - the name of one of art’s most popular forms evoked a charming and entrancing world of singing and acting. Beginning its life in the late nineteenth century (with the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan, Franz Lehar, Johann Strauss 11and Lionel Monckton) the form enjoyed success almost overnight as it offered society a means of escaping the trials and tribulations of life. Early composers of operettas and musicals evolved from three back grounds; European (Sigmund Romberg and Victor Herbert), Euro pean emigre (Irving Berlin and George Gershwin) and home-grown American/English (Porter, Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Ivor Novello and Lionel Bart). These composers exploited escapist plots offering their audiences rare views of life as a nouveau riche (High Society) stories of heroes rising from rags to riches (My Fair Lady, Oliver) and journeys to faraway lands (South. Pacific and The King and I). Gradually realism and satire crept into the plots as both “old” com posers (Gershwin for example in his Pulitzer Prize Winner Let Them Eat Cake) and new/younger composers (Bernstein, Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber) realised a growing need of audiences to identify with the protagonists and themes of the musical. No longer was life seen through rose-coloured glasses. Audiences saw life as it really is with subjects such as bigotry and racism being explored (West Side Story). Life stories also became a popular subject for composers with musicals such as Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and Sunday in the Park with George offering audiences the real story of life’s heroes. The downs as well as the ups of life are portrayed in these musicals, allowing audiences to see for the first time that figureheads also suffer. Today the musical is a very sophisticated art form with technicalities such as lighting, make-up and scenery playing as important a role as the words, music and dance. The music itself evokes the days of Strauss’Die Fledermaus, when semi-operatic outflowings were the order of the day. The music in works such as Sw eeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George (Sondheim) and Les Miserables (Boubill and SchSnberg) serve to emphasise this point. Tonight the R & R (which is, incidentally, almost as old as the musical!) offers a showcase of this ever-popular form. The remarkable evolution of the musical over the last eighty years will be seen in the Society’s performances of works from the operettas of Strauss 11(Die Fledermaus) and Monckton (The Arcadians) through old favourites by Novello, (Perchance to Dream and The Dancing Years), Lerner and Loewe (Brigadoon, Gigi and My Fair Lady) and Rodgers and Hammerstein (Oklahoma, Carousel and South Pacific) to songs from contemporary musicals by Lloyd Webber (Cats, The Phantom of the Opera), Sondheim (A Little Night Music) and Boubill and Schonberg (Les Miserables). Enjoy “A Sonq for You”. „ (C) Ciara Higgins, 1993
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.