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- Volume 2, Issue 1, 2008
Studies in Musical Theatre - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2008
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2008
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Emancipation or exploitation? Gender liberation and adult musicals in 1970s New York
More LessBecause the 1960s sexual revolution preceding the gay and women's liberation movements was largely defined by straight men, the increased sexual freedom that came with liberation often translated, especially for women, into the substitution of one kind of exploitation for another. The adult musicals (musicals featuring nudity and simulated sex) that were faddish off-Broadway in the 1970s grappled with the country's changing sexual mores, and many reflected contemporary struggles for gender equality. Yet because of the strong sexual content of adult musicals, messages of liberation were often lost on audiences who were simply interested in vicariously experiencing reverberations of the sexual revolution. This article examines the ways adult musicals translated messages championed by the women's and gay liberation movements, as well as the ways that actors in musicals like Let My People Come and Oh! Calcutta!, as well as their audiences, negotiated interconnected messages of sexual freedom and exploitation.
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Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre
More LessCharlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre focuses heavily on the development of the protagonist's voice, as the reader can trace the young Jane's transition from a vulnerable gothic heroine to an authoritative autobiographical narrator. Film adaptations of the novel often fail to convey this transition due to the inability of the film-maker to successfully incorporate Jane's narration into the piece. Two recent musical versions of Jane Eyre present interesting solutions to this problem; the ability to layer voices through song, along with the potential for musical commentary as opposed to voice-over, allows for innovative approaches to rectifying the problems regarding Jane's narration in other media. However, although the stage musical version by John Caird and Paul Gordon and the chamber opera adaptation by Michael Berkeley and David Malouf both attempt to preserve Jane's narrative authority, the writers are unable to fully capture the novelistic nuances of the heroine's development from abused orphan to omniscient storyteller.
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Fiddler on the Roof: considerations in a new age
More LessIs the universal acclaim given to Fiddler on the Roof well earned? Or has Fiddler lost its power over its forty years of existence, owing to a more cynical, less sympathetic culture? Might this be especially true with respect to what was once perceived as Jewish oppression, and might now be seen as Jewish nostalgia and arrogance? Such a lack of sympathy begs the further question: how legitimately Jewish an experience has Fiddler offered to audiences, whether during the 1960s when it premiered or in the new millennium? We thus explore Fiddler on the Roof as a cultural, literary and theatrical entity, especially in terms of the genuineness of the Yiddishkeit experience the play has offered and might still offer.
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Representation of Clytemnestra and Cassandra in Taneyev's Oresteia
More LessSergei Taneyev (18561915) was a Muscovite, a piano virtuoso, music theorist, composer, and pedagogue. He was a pupil and later a close friend of Tchaikovsky, and a teacher of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Glier and Gretchaninov, among a host of other Russian composers. Taneyev was also known for his passionate interest in Greek antiquity, in the early music of the Netherlands, and in counterpoint. The choice for the subject of his one and only opera Oresteia (1894),
1 based on the eponymous tragedy by Aeschylus, perplexed its critics and audiences.2 While Aeschylus made a number of changes in his The Oresteia that challenged the established perception of its characters, Taneyev's changes and additions were necessary in order to combat his listeners' lack of familiarity with the tragedy and its storyline. This article concentrates on Taneyev's treatment of women's roles and explores the ways in which Taneyev's Clytemnestra and Cassandra are similar to, and different from their counterparts in the original source. The important changes and additions made by Taneyev are analysed and set in the context of the nineteenth-century Russian operatic scene.1The title of Aeschylus' The Oresteia appears in Russian as Oresteia, because the definite article does not exist in Russian. This article will therefore refer to Taneyev's opera as Oresteia, and the original work of Aeschylus as The Oresteia.
2For a detailed discussion of antiquity in Russian literature, music and art, see Korabelnikova 1986: 101109, and Korabelnikova 1979: 8392.
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Flooding the concrte: Clastoclysm and the notion of the continuum as a conceptual and musical basis for a postdramatic music-theatre performance
More LessThis article explores issues that pertain to the concept of music-theatre as music through a discussion of the performance Clastoclysm. Using Lvi-Strauss' notion of the affinity between the domains of music and myth as a point of departure, the article presents the ways in which the performance makes use of a musically-derived conceptual model, which is applied to mythic text in a way that evades the boundaries of structuralism. The model is based on the concept of the continuum, derived from musique concrte, and its application will be explored through a discussion of the process of the composition of the performance score, as well as the process of performance. In the last section of the article we will return to the original issue that informed our discussion of the musical model, and will discuss how the concept of the continuum was used to include in the performance a metalingual function as a performed clash between tonal music and musique concrte.
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Detached signifiers, dead babies and demon dwarves: Bieito's Dutchman
More LessThe Catalan director Calixto Bieito is a successful opera director, critically acclaimed for his often violent and confrontational concepts. He has worked mainly on German stages in the last decade, where audiences have often been scandalized by the explicit imagery and radical re-interpretations in Bieito's work. This reactive review critiques his production of The Flying Dutchman for Stuttgart State Opera (2008), applying mainly semiotic and some phenomenological analysis. It also contextualizes Regietheater (director's theatre) with audience expectation. The context of the production and the impact of using an earlier (1841) version of the opera is examined with reference to direction, scenography and conceptual updating of The Flying Dutchman.
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Reviews
Opera From the Greek: Studies in the Poetics of Appropriation, Michael Ewans (2007) Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 216 pp., ISBN 978-0-7546-6099-6 (hbk), 55.00
Oklahoma! The Making of an American Musical, Tim Carter (2007) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 327 pp., ISBN 978-0-300-10619-0 (hbk), 20.00
Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Amanda Vaill (2007) London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 675 pp., ISBN 978-0-2978-4797-7 (hbk), 25.00
Berio's Sequenzas: Essays on Performance, Composition and Analysis, Janet K. Halfyard (ed.) Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007, xxii + 306 pp., ISBN 978-0-7546-5445-2 (hbk), 60.00
The British Musical Film, John Mundy (2007) Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 276 pp., ISBN 978-0-7190-6321-3 (pbk), 14.99
British Pantomime Performance, Millie Taylor (2007) Bristol (UK) and Chicago (US): Intellect Books, 208 pp., ISBN 978-1-84150-174-1 (pbk), 19.95
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