The Newly Inspired Sound of Music

Arizona Opera often looks at ways to widen the audience or broaden the definition of opera. The latest example is their production of The Sound of Music, directed by Ian Silverman and starring Cadie J. Bryan as Maria and Jonathan Bryan as Captain Von Trapp. So how does a musical look as performed by an opera company?

Quite beautiful, it turns out. It's already a pleasure to hear live music and singing--and having this put together by an opera company means that the singers have different backgrounds than those you'll find at a typical musical. They add that extra, luxuriant quality to their singing. So the emphasis becomes even more on the singing than normal--or perhaps more on the technical delivery than just on the general tone of the songs.

Not that we lost the tone or the story. I've only watched The Sound of Music once, so it was a delight to delve back into the story. The themes around Maria's character center so perfectly around the idea that we each have a role in life, even if we don't always know what that role is. We see her trying to fit into a place that doesn't quite work--so the nuns offer her a different way to serve God and Man, as a teacher and then a wife and mother. Doing the right thing can take many shapes; it takes all of us, all of our shapes, to make the world turn. And Maria's very delight in the world and in life and in singing and joy that didn't make her fit in well at the convent are the very things that make her thrive in the Von Trapp household.

I have little to say on the technical sides of this production. The sets were beautiful, as usual; the way that the mountains were lit for day or darkened for evening was lovely. Having so many children on stage, all singing along, was impressive. But really it was just the way that everything expressed the story of this family coming together that made this opera's production of a musical just as elevated an experience as one of their operas. I wouldn't mind seeing more musicals show up in the season occasionally. 

It Can Never Be Like It Was Before

Since moving back to the Phoenix area almost six years ago, I've been trying to enjoy the things the city has to offer, like the arts. Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona, Southwest Shakespeare Company, Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Musicfest, the Mesa Arts Center, the Orpheum Theatre, Herberger--there's plenty to keep busy with show after show. So up until last month, I had never attended a performance from Phoenix Theatre Company. 

If Bandstand was anything of an example of the quality of their productions, I've been missing out. (Granted, Phoenix Theatre Company tickets also cost more than some of the saver ticket options for other companies, though they do offer lots of promo codes.) This musical was at their Mainstage, which is a relatively small venue. Yet the production was full--music and choreography and singing. Even towards the back, you're close enough to enjoy the detail of it all.

The story follows WWII vets trying to make their way back into society after the war. We also focus on Julia, the war widow trying to have an identity besides just being a war widow but also trying to find closure for the loss of her husband. And the way in which their story of "coming home" is told is quite unlike any other. Their PTSD, their lingering issues (whether physical or mental), their fears, their memories, what sets them off--it's all thrown in within the story. We don't see the innocent young men before the war, then the haunted men after the war, and then some sort of third act event that brings it all to a climax, then the resolution. That is, we see all the stages of the story told in the musical. But we don't see those stages in the characters' lives. We come to understand that for them, there is no going back, no coming home (in which I inadvertently take some of Frodo's words--which I suppose is fitting given that Tolkien wrote his story after his experience in WWI). They'll always carry the war with them; the sacrifice wasn't just in the time spent overseas but in their whole lives. It can't ever be "just like it was before."

So the story itself is incredibly moving. And the performances matched the material. 

Having dabbled in swing dancing in the past year, that swing era now has a little bit of connection for me. So it was nice even just getting to hear all the music and see the choreography. This is one of those musicals that flows from one song to the next; the beats keep moving. Swing makes for a wild and reckless abandon to energy that tries to stave off the pain of the war--and audience-wise, provides levity towards the serious material. Somehow this musical acknowledges the depths of darkness while also not being depressing. That's what art can do, though, no? The darkness is made into an elevated view of reality--by both the band in the musical and by the musical itself. Art can heal not by taking away the pain but by giving it outlet, giving a place to state the truth in full force in a way that you couldn't in any other way. 

She Is Her Own Fair Lady, Not His

From time to time, you'll hear me mention how I watched Pygmalion back in 2008 and grew positively obsessed with the play and the performance. I suppose I had a bit of a literary crush in Henry Higgins: the actor portraying him gave him that charming, infectious energy that made him more into a lovable madman than a disgruntled and egotistical and rude bachelor-scholar. A lot pends on how his character is played--and on the overall structure of each particular version of the play.

I don't believe I had ever watched the entirety of the musical version, My Fair Lady, until last week when the touring production was at ASU Gammage. I normally see a lot of plays and shows, but not at Gammage. I've only seen on there, and that was several years ago. But my "maybe" to see this one turned into a quick yes because it's a story I have so much history of enjoying.

I had mistakenly believed that the difference between the play and the musical was that Higgins and Eliza do end up together in the musical, even though they don't in the play. I guess I got that impression from the greater emphasis on love story type songs in the soundtrack. So I was a little surprised that that was not the case--and that there was in fact less chemistry between the two characters in this production than in the play I had watched before. In a way, that was a little disappointing given how fun their banter can be. And I prefer Higgins to be a lovable madman than just a grouch. 

But the musical made its own exploration of Eliza herself. The shift was a deeper emphasis on her perspective. She asserts herself as a woman secure in her own identity, despite society's (and individual people's) impressions or ideas of her. She moves between classes, yes, but she is still Eliza. Henry didn't give her that--just as he cannot take it away from her when he continues to disrespect her even after she has done everything she can to please him. Eliza has always been secure in herself. She used to hold her own against her father: she kept money to herself instead of giving it all to him. So Higgins is no different: she gives him what she chooses to give him but she doesn't give him charge over her dignity or identity. 

This is why we have the famous quote: "I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself." Eliza tires of Henry's game of changing class based on speech. She learns to speak well and so can pass as upper class and go places she couldn't have gone before when her words exposed her low social standing. But it all means nothing. She doesn't want to play a farce; she wants to be herself. She doesn't want to be seen as what role she can play; she wants to be seen as herself. So she doesn't want Higgins to see her as his successful language project; she wants him to see her as a person who has worked hard for him. And because he cannot, she leaves. 

Like I said, I did miss the emphasis on playful banter from the play. But the musical gave a great exploration of identity and one person's self-assertion of identity. Given that identity has been a main topic of focus in my life right now, this was a welcome theme to explore. And of course I'll not say no to good singing and wonderful sets. 

Candide: A Depressing Comedy?

Well, well, one year after moving back into the greater Phoenix area, I've turned into quite the Arizona Opera regular, haven't I? That is, hopefully I'll be able to finish with Das Rheingold in April and maybe The Barber of Seville in March. This month it was Candide, which I had read was more like a musical than a usual opera. So definitely a little different.

They also used this opportunity to try out something different with the stage. Instead of having the usual physical sets, there were projections on the backdrop, the side walls (sorry, what are they called?), the floor, and sometimes also around the middle of the stage. For most other shows, I would feel like something was missing with not actually having physical sets. But this was the perfect show to try out this method. Candide is a kooky, weird, random, comedic bundle--and the kaleidoscope of projections fit it perfectly. Cityscapes gave the view the look almost of a live-action/animated film, the forest made for a beautiful backdrop to Candide's somber songs of solitude, and the scenes with the ships and the hot air balloon (that would have just looked silly if the tone were serious) looked hilarious and cool in a positive sense.

The music? I don't really know. Because the instrumental portions sounded much like a film score, it was once again great to hear the Phoenix Symphony playing all of this music live. The songs were different from opera, yes, but also sometimes similar. As I somewhat alluded to, Candide's lonesome songs were quite pretty, breaks from all the, ah, stuff that goes on throughout this show. And Katrina Galka, I've said positive things about her in the past (actually I think it was partly because I knew she would be in Candide that I decided I did want to go see this one). She really stole the show with "Glitter and Be Gay," when Cunegonde is showering herself in jewels to try and cheer herself up. That piece alone made the whole show worth it. She has power, both to sing and to express. You could tell, too, that the entire audience was captivated by her performance there (you've gotta love an opera audience: they are entirely honest and will clap loudly when they're pleased and only quietly and politely when they're neutral--oh, and another side note, you know how with any other show if one person does a standing ovation at the end then the rest of the audience stands up, too, even the person sitting next to you who couldn't stop yawning just because they're all sheep? opera audiences don't do that; each person only stands if they feel led to stand to express their honest appreciation. I like that).

The plot? Now I have no idea what I think. I got the idea that this show was going to have a couple racy moments, and it did, though honestly not much (then again, not much seems that racy to me even years after that one Greek plays class I took in college). I just share this because there was a big group of students that attended this production, and as we were all walking out I heard a couple of them talking about all of this. You know, the awkwardness of sitting next to someone else's parent during those scenes and hearing their teacher express apology about not realizing that that content would be in there (that's the surprising part: didn't he/she look up the show at all before planning to take the class?). It was just kind of funny, not the type of conversation you usually hear while walking out of the opera.

Anyways, back to the plot. Even with reading the synopsis before each act, I had a hard time keeping up. There are so many characters and places and everyone brutally dies and then randomly shows up again in some other setting that I eventually just gave up on trying to keep up and settled on watching each moment instead. The gist of it is that this group of young people have a teacher who tells them his philosophy in life, which is that everything in the world is for the best. Basically everything has a reason and nothing is bad. But then everything that happens to everyone in the story is worse than bad. War and natural disasters and rape (another side note: there would not be so much about rape, including jokes about it, if this show were written today; that part really started to get annoying by the end) and hangings and shipwrecks. It's all terrible--but it's all treated in that same kooky, comedic tone so that it's all comedic rather than tragic. When the crowd is all excited to hang Pangloss, for instance, (and I really have no idea who the crowd was or why they wanted to hang him) you want to step back because, well, hanging someone just because you want to is horrible, and yet they were acting out the scene so silly that it was funny. The board chair, John Johnson, said it himself in his message in the program: Candide is entertainment. Whatever else it is or isn't, it's entertaining.

The theme did feel a bit depressing towards the end there, when all of the characters are broken and feel like nothing was worth what it cost them and nothing in the world occurred as promised. There was definitely a moment of despondency there after all of the comedy. And yet everything did wrap up with a final message of, in a sense, saying that yes, you do need to simplify your view. Nothing in this world will be perfect and therefore you need to ground yourself in something real and solid and simple. No palace of jewels, Cunegonde, just a little farm. No gold and status. Candide, just a little farm. No perfect people, just Cunegonde and Candide.

So while I can't say that this was my favorite show that I've ever seen, it did give me an evening's entertainment and also more to think about afterwards. And I'm fine with that: when a company has a whole season of shows, they have the opportunity to do different thing with each show. You don't necessarily want them all to be Madama Butterfly and Tosca.

TLOTR on Stage, or in a Book

How can someone become obsessed with a musical they've never actually seen? Quite easily, apparently.

Back around 2007 or 2008 or somewhere around there, I was pretty obsessed with The Lord of the Rings Stage Production (I call it a musical usually, but even though it had music and songs, it wasn't exactly called a musical). I would watch the official clips on YouTube, trying to imagine how they all fit in together and to picture what it would be like to watch from the audience. Eventually I bought the soundtrack (at least that was available to me), and I've continued to return to it, usually having to listen to almost every track (even when I had thought to just listen to one or two).

Those songs have stayed living in my head over the years, and I never gave up on the possibility of seeing the production live: there was talk about a world tour in 2015. But 2015 came and went and there was no world tour (I'd been hoping they'd do a stop in LA that I would be able to go over for); I think the rumor is that funding held them back (it was a pretty expensive production, and one with large sets and a crazy stage that would be difficult to move around).

I did, however, get the next best thing. I got the companion book. I'd been wanting it for some time, and finally when I got a gift card for Christmas, I knew what I had to spend it on. So much time has passed that unless you want to spend lots of money, you have to get the book secondhand--but I was able to get a nice copy that's as good as new. So I'm very thankful.

It's quite a nice book, too. A sturdy hardcover, it's designed to look like leather, with the production's blue logo up on front. There are lots of pictures, too, which was one of the major draws for me. I took my time staring at them all (which is one of the reasons why it took me so long to get through this book), and they filled in gaps of missing scenes that I had never seen from the video clips.

The way the book is divided up, there is a lot of space in the beginning devoted to the technical side of trying to get a production started. While all of this was interesting, I have to admit that it dragged on a bit long to me--especially since I was reading this book to try and get an idea of what the show was like. So I wanted to hear more about the plot than about how they found the producers (usually I want to hear less about the plot and more about the making of, but this was a special situation).

That said, the degree of detail that this book goes into in a mere 150 pages was something. I'm less familiar with how stage productions are put together (I read more about movies), so this was all interesting to learn about. And the commentary on the music was one of my favorite things to go through: this production had such a specific musical style that's quite unlike anything else. Then there is all of the talk about that amazing moving stage, the stilts and such, the lighting, the costumes, etc. What a show this was. I regret even more now that I never had the chance to see it.

Yet this book let me almost pretend that I got to see the show. I saw so many more images of it ("Is that what the balrog looked like? It's terrifying," I thought as I turned the page to see the creature of flame and shadow), so many more glimpses into the imagery. Even from still images, I got an idea of movement, of what the choreography was like and what the lighting was like (wow, the Fords of Rivendell must've looked amazing). And all through it all, the songs I long ago memorized were playing in my head. I'm in awe all over again, and I'm transported all over again.

(BTW - It is a testament to the hard work of the team that brought this show together that I hardly ever thought of the movies while reading this book. I know they tried very much to distinguish themselves from the movies [which weren't out yet when they started early work on the show but came out as the production was moving along], and I think they succeeded in creating their own unique interpretation of Tolkien.)

 

Beauty and the Beast in Front of Me

Before I graduate, there are some things I've been making sure I do or see on campus that I just never got around to before.  One thing I had never done was to go inside of the ASU Gammage auditorium, even though The Phantom of the Opera was there a couple years ago and I really should have found a way to make it to that.

So when I learned that Beauty and the Beast was doing a couple of performances this month, I said, hello, more perfect timing, and made sure not to miss it. I've probably said this before, but despite enjoying seeing live things like this, I hardly see any at all. In fact, I think this was my first "real musical," which means I'm not counting any for-children productions I may have seen when I was younger.

One of the things I really enjoyed was seeing how quickly and seamlessly they turned the sets around. There is fluidity to the choreography not just of the actors but of everything on the stage. The castle set/lighting was properly creepy and all the lights and glimmer during "Be Our Guest" were as expansive and shiny as it gets. I was only disappointed by the library: although the arch of tumbling, oversized books they used fit into the set's permanent arches, I would have preferred to see an arch of shelves. The library is so huge and beautiful in the movie that I wanted to see something more similar to that instead of an abstract "books" image.

While I never felt that William A. Martin as Maurice showed enough emotion in his dialogue, Joe Hager gave a great performance as Gaston, really playing with the character. Given that this musical is almost double the length of the movie, they take more time for some of the character developments. We see more, particularly, of the servants and also more tidbits of scenes in general. While not all of the added songs interested me much, some did add a deeper angle or more development. One of these was at the end of Act I; I think it was "If I Can't Love Her."

Although I think I would utterly suffocate in New York having Central Park as the only echo of "nature" including the sky, it would also be nice to always have so many productions to go see. Then again, I'm always talking about how Phoenix does have plenty of things play during the year--I just usually don't get to see them. Maybe I'll come back in February for Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Wizard of Oz?

Les Mis & Sorrow Turned to Hope

Yesterday was such a funny day. It consisted of present-opening, pumpkin muffins, a last minute realization that we couldn't both cook the turkey and go watch Les Misérables, a decision to go watch the movie and then come home and cook lamb instead, an encounter with a sold out afternoon showing that led to purchasing the evening showing and barely finding a restaurant other than Denny's that was open at 4:00 on Christmas for dinner without reservations, and finally a late viewing of the movie. It was a day of randomness, but also an entertaining one.

I would probably preface my thoughts on the movie by explaining that I do like musicals, but that's a difficult statement: musicals are as diverse as anything else and I can either like one or not depending on other factors besides just the involvement of music. Movies-wise, I like The Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd, but found West Side Story boring. It just depends.

I also wasn't previously very familiar with the story of Les Misérables. The book is on my mind's list of books to read someday, but so are many others. And musicals don't tend to be terribly much like the books they're based on, anyway, do they? (Which I am not saying is a bad thing, just a fact.)

Les Misérables was filled with music, but not so much of the musical number variety; songs, instead, took the form of dialogue sung instead of spoken. It was the combination of the music with the actors' performances that made this movie such a piece of artwork. The one thing I think we all know about the story is that it's very sad material, and the actors all brought so much passionate emotion to their performances. Their singing was often tearful, but never fabricated.

This story was something of an ode to me. It's an ode to sorrow and oppression and an ode to the one thing that can have meaning under such conditions, love. Although the theme of love makes it a fitting movie to come out on Christmas day, it could also have come out on the Fourth of July for its themes of endurance, independence, and strength of resolution. These characters--I think it must be these characters that make this story compelling. While some I see as symbolic figures, others are so real--we feel their sorrows and hope so much for the world to change and grow better for them. Which brings us to the final note: the hope for the future that this story leaves us with. And that, further, fits in with the approaching New Year. A New Year for new hopes and new chances.