1、Musical TheatreWhat is a Musical?6/3/2023The Best Musicals have three essential qualitiesnBrains(intelligence and style)nHeart(genuine and believable emotion)nCourage(The guts to do something creative and exciting)6/3/2023Musical TheatreA Brief History6/3/2023GreeksnAdded music to their productions
2、as early as the 5th Century B.C.nThe Greek Chorus sometimes included music(Aeschylus&Sophocles composed their own music but melodies no longer exist)nSolos were not unheard ofnNo direct effect on modern musicals but it shows that show tunes have been around for more than 2500 years6/3/2023Romansn3rd
3、 Century comedies of Plautus included song and dance routines with full orchestrationsnTo make dance steps more audible in large open air theatres,actors attached metal chips called sabilla to their footwear the first tap shoesnStress on spectacle and special effects,a trend that echoes into our own
4、 time6/3/2023Europe Middle Ages nTraveling minstrels and roving troupes of performers offered popular songs and slapstick comedyn12th and 13th centuries religious dramas,intended as liturgical teaching tools,used church chants,creating their own form of musical theatre 6/3/2023Europe RenaissancenMin
5、strels reached their peak with Commedia Dellarte in Italy with raucous clown characters improving their way through familiar stories nFormal musical theatre was rare in the Renaissance,but Moliere turned several of his plays into comedies with songs when the court of Louis XIV demanded song and danc
6、e entertainments in the late 1600s 6/3/2023Europe 18th CenturynBy the 1700s,two forms of musical theater were common in Britain,France and Germany nballad operas like John Gays The Beggars Opera(1728)that borrowed popular songs of the day and rewrote the lyricsncomic operas,with original scores and
7、mostly romantic plot lines,like Michael Balfes The Bohemian Girl(1845).nWhich brings us to the question6/3/2023Are Musicals Descended From Opera?nOpera has been with us since the late 1500s,but contemporary musical theatre and film are not direct descendants of grand opera.nOpera can be called a des
8、cendant of classical theatre.When Renaissance writers and composers tried to resurrect the forms of Greek drama,they added music.This eventually led to the birth of grand opera.nFrom its birth in the 1800s,the musical has often spoofed opera,but it traces its roots to other sources.Vaudeville,burles
9、que,and many other forms are the true ancestors of the modern musical-not opera.6/3/2023Are Musicals Descended From Opera?nOf course,the melodies of grand opera were part of the popular musical culture of the 1800s and early 1900s,and therefore had some effect on the musical theater melodies of that
10、 time.nHowever,the so-called comic operas that dominated Broadway in the late 1880s and 90s,including the works of Gilbert&Sullivan,are not operas.Producers called these shows comic operas to make them sound more sophisticated,but with extended dialogue and melodies designed for the popular taste of
11、 that era,they were clearly musicals.6/3/2023Musical TheatreGilbert and Sullivan6/3/2023Gilbert and SullivannIn the 1870s,William S.Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan revolutionized the musical theatre,creating witty,melodic operettas.Their songs sparkled with melody and clever rhyme,and Gilberts librettos
12、 blended silliness and satire in settings that ranged from fantasy to the realistic.nProducer Richard DOyly Carte publicized these shows as light operas,but by any name,they were musicals some of the finest the world would ever see.6/3/2023Gilbert and Sullivan-BeginningsnGilbert was an unsuccessful
13、attorney before his comic poems appeared in popular magazines.This opened the way to a career as a playwright and director.nSullivan was Britains most promising serious composer,but he woud compose lighter pieces to cover the expenses of his high-society lifestyle.nIn the 1860s,British musical theat
14、re consisted of variety shows,French operettas,and slapdash comic light operas presented by John Hollingshead at The Gaiety Theatre.6/3/2023Trial by Jury(1875)6/3/2023Trial by JurynHollingshead hired G&S to create Thespis(1871),a mythological spoof.Gilbert didnt like it,but it impressed producer Ric
15、hard DOyly Carte.n4 years later,he needed a one-act curtain raiser to share the bill with his production at Londons Opera Comique.Carte convinced G&S to adapt one of Gilberts satirical poems.nTrial by Jury(1875)was a huge success nThis piece established several themes that run through most of Gilber
16、t and Sullivans shows nunqualified men who have oiled their way into high public office nthe course of true love flowing in surprising directions nan appalling disdain for women over 40 years of age 6/3/2023Gilbert and Sullivan The SorcerernDOyly Carte then persuaded G&S to attempt a full-length wor
17、k.The Sorcerer(1877)involved a magician who wreaks havoc in a small English village with a love potion.nGilbert and Sullivan were developing a form of British operetta that was quite unlike its predecessors.They eliminated overt sexual references and replaced the cartoonish characters with more fami
18、liar,believable characters.nEncouraged by The Sorcerers profitable run,they then created an operetta that succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,with a show that reshaped the popular musical theatre on both sides of the Atlantic.6/3/2023HMS Pinafore(1878)6/3/2023HMS Pinafore(1878)nH.M.S.Pinafore was
19、the story of a naval captains daughter who spurns the attentions of the First Lord of the Admiralty because she loves a common sailor,spoofing the Victorian class system.nPinafore was such a hit that DOyly Cartes investors tried to steal the production from him,sending thugs to carry off the sets an
20、d costumes in the middle of a performance!nSince there was no international copyright laws,both Britain and the U.S.were flooded with Pinafore copycats.When G&S brought their company of Pinafore to New York,the casts of several unauthorized Pinafores brazenly turned out to welcome them in the harbor
21、.6/3/2023Pirates of Penzance(1880)6/3/2023Pirates of PenzancenDOyly Carte secured the first international copyright by premiering The Pirates of Penzance(1880)simultaneously in New York and Great Britain.nPirates is the story of Fredrick,a young man who was accidentally apprenticed to a band of pira
22、tes.He falls in love with a Major Generals ward and tries to atone for his past by plotting the destruction of his former comrades.When it turns out the soft-hearted pirates are really noblemen who have gone wrong,they and a relieved Frederick marry the multitudinous wards of the rather modern Major
23、 General.nThe success of Pirates confirmed Gilbert and Sullivans place in popular culture.The amazing thing was that they were just getting started.6/3/2023The Rocky Road of SuccessnG&S continued to turn out successes such as Patience(1881),Iolanthe(1882),but Princess Ida(1884)was not as well receiv
24、ed so it closed early.DOyly requested another show to take its place.nGilbert submitted yet another plot involving a love potion,and when no amount of re-writing could make Sullivan accept it,the disagreement turned ugly.nSullivan declared that it was time for him to concentrate on more serious comp
25、ositions,and Gilbert resented the suggestion that their collaboration was holding Sullivan back.nThe partnership was on the brink of collapse when a Japanese sword fell from the wall of Gilberts study inspiring the plot for their most popular show ever.6/3/2023The Mikado(1885)6/3/2023The MikadonThe
26、Mikado was influenced by an 1880s craze for“all things Japanese.”The complicated plot centers on what happens when the Emperor of Japan decrees that flirting is punishable by death.Because no one in the town of Titipu is willing to enforce this horrible law,a condemned tailor(Koko)is appointed Lord
27、High Executioner the reasoning being that he cannot behead anyone until he beheads himself.When it turns out he has to execute someone after all,he selects Nanki-Poo,a traveling minstrel.Nanki-Poo will only agree to the scheme if he can first marry the executioners ward and finance,the lovely Yum-Yu
28、m.This will allow the minstrel a month of happiness,and the Executioner can then behead the man and marry his ward as planned.An aged woman(Katisha)from the royal court appears,announcing that Nanki-poo is really the crown prince who has been in hiding since he toyed with her affections!After a seri
29、es of deceptions and misunderstandings,everything is resolved.nThe Mikados Japanese setting and costumes masked the fact that it was a send-up of British customs and pretensions.In the United States,Mikado-mania fed a nationwide American passion for all things Japanese.It remains one of the most fre
30、quently produced musicals of all time,and still receives new amateur and professional stagings worldwide.6/3/2023The Beginning of the EndnG&Ss following shows were not able to live up to the success of The Mikado.nWhen it seemed Gilbert and Sullivans collaboration was at its peak,it fell apart over
31、several trivial disputes including an infamous quarrel over the price of some new carpeting in the Savoy Theatre.nAfter several years,the Savoy trio effected a reconciliation,but things were never quite the same.Gilbert and Sullivans talents were intact,but both were losing the fresh creative edge.6
32、/3/2023The Final YearsnG&S remained on cordial terms in their final years,and were both hailed by the public.When Sullivan received a knighthood in 1888,Gilbert was overlooked.The old collaborators worked on revivals and shared curtain calls at the opening nights.Sullivan continued composing classic
33、al pieces,and wrote comic operas with new librettists.Weakened by years of kidney trouble,he succumbed to a severe case of bronchitis in 1900 at age 58 years.nGilbert enjoyed renewed health and popularity in the new century,writing plays and musical librettos,and finally received his knighthood in 1
34、907.In late May 1911,Gilbert(at age 74)suffered a fatal heart attack while saving a young woman from drowning on his country estate.nAfter many years of illness,Richard DOyly Carte died in 1901.6/3/2023Musical TheatreMusical Theatre in America:The Minstrel Show6/3/2023Minstrel ShowsnThe American mus
35、ical has one shameful chapter in its history minstrel shows.The most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century,minstrelsy embodied racial hatred.nBoth white and black performers donned blackface,and audiences of all colors loved it.Hateful as it was,minstrel shows were the first
36、form of musical theatre that was 100%American-born and bred.nMinstrel shows developed in the 1840s,peaked after the Civil War and remained popular into the early 1900s.In these shows,white men blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Blacks,performing songs and skits that sentimentalized sla
37、ve life on Southern plantations.nBlacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away,gobbling chitlins,stealing the occasional watermelon,and expressing their inexplicable love for ol massuh.6/3/2023Jim CrownBlackface acts were common features in circuses and traveling shows from t
38、he 1790s onwards.nIn the 1820s white entertainer Thomas Daddy Rice caused a nationwide sensation by wearing burnt cork to perform the song Jump Jim Crow on stage.He first heard it from an old black street singer who supposedly made up the lyric about his own name nJim Crow turned out to be more than
39、 a popular song.It became a stock comedy character,and a by-word for legalized racial segregation.(Separate but Equal)6/3/2023Minstrel ShowsnMinstrelsy was the first example of the way American popular culture would exploit and manipulate Afro-Americans and their culture to please and benefit white
40、Americans.nAs laws changed,several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain.Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look dark enough,performing material that demeaned their own race.Despite such drawbacks,minstrelsy provided African American performers wi
41、th their first professional stage outlet.6/3/2023Famous Minstrel PerformersAmos and AndyAl Jolson6/3/2023Musical TheatreMusical Theatre in America:Burlesque6/3/2023BurlesquenBeginning in the 1840s,these works entertained the lower and middle classes by making fun of(or burlesquing)the operas,plays a
42、nd social habits of the upper classes.nEverything from Shakespearean drama to opera could inspire a full-length burlesque spoof.nBy the 1860s,burlesque relied on the display of shapely,underdressed women to keep audiences interested.In the Victorian age,when proper women went to great lengths to hid
43、e their physical form beneath bustles,hoops and frills,the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge.6/3/2023BurlesquenSuggestive rather than bawdy,these shows relied less on strong scripts or songs than on sheer star power.When Broadways The Black Crook became a mass
44、ive hit in 1866,its troop of ballerinas in flesh-colored tights served notice that respectable American audiences were ready to fork over big bucks for sexually stimulating entertainment.nAt first,the American press praised burlesques,but turned vicious under pressure from influential do-gooders.But
45、 the cries of the self-righteous had an unintended effect.Editorials and sermons condemning burlesque as indecent only made the form more popular!6/3/2023BurlesquenBy the 1880s,wit was gradually replaced by a determination to reveal as much of the feminine form as local laws allowed.But obscenity an
46、d vulgarity were avoided the point was to spoof,not to offend.nBurlesque underwent a crucial change when Michael Leavitt produced burlesque variety shows using something similar to the three act minstrel show format nACT ONE:The ensemble entertains with songs and gags,dressed in formal evening cloth
47、es.nACT TWO:An olio of variety acts(singers,comics,skits,etc.).nACT THREE:A complete one-act musical burlesque.These ranged from Shakespearean take offs like Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice to a Gilbert and Sullivan spoof called The Mick Hair-Do.6/3/2023BurlesquenThe biggest burlesque star of th
48、e early 20th Century was dancer Millie DeLeon,who tossed her garters into the audience and occasionally neglected to wear tights,which got her arrested on occasion,and helped to give burlesque a raunchy reputation.nIn time,burlesque bills began and ended with extended skits that made fun of hit show
49、s and popular topics.In between came a variety olio where singers,comics,and specialty acts were all part of the mix.By the time most performers reached vaudeville,they were already experienced pros.nWhile it was common for burlesque stars to graduate into vaudeville,vaudevillians considered it a fa
50、tal disgrace to appear in burlesque,insisting that only those who were washed up would stoop so low.However,many vaudeville veterans did burlesque during dry spells,appearing under an assumed name.nSome famous comedians learned their craft working in burlesque,including future musical comedy stars J
