Stage Left
A theatrical blog and occasional podcast of CD reviews, news and interviews from the world of stage, screen, cabaret and related places.Video Episodes:
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02:05:27 04/17/11
From Russia, con fuoco
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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with Yefim Bronfman, piano
What: Tchaikovsky
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02:05:19 04/15/11
Diary of a mad housewife
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What: Next to Normal
Where: The Fox Theatre
When: April 12 through 24, 2010
In musical theatre
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22:44:20 01/03/11
The St. Louis theatre calendar for the week of January 3, 2011
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[Looking for auditions and other artistic opportunities? Check out the St. Louis Auditions site.]
I'm now adding my own purely personal comments to events about which I think I have anything worthwhile to say. Because that's what bloggers do.
Cooking With Elisa Upstream Theatre presents Cooking With Elisa January 7 through 23. Performances take place at 305 South Skinker. This is the US premiere of the play by Argentine author Luc
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00:02:22 12/31/10
Bright Lights, Big City
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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
What: City Lights
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: December 29 and 30, 2010
Referring to the ambiguous final frames of Charlie Chaplin's romantic comedy City Lights (Will the Blind Girl still love The Tramp now that her sight has been restored and she can see he's not the gentleman she thought him to be?), film archivist Reg Hartt noted "roughly 20% of every audience I have ever shown the film to needs to be left alone for about fifteen minutes when the picture ends." The enthusiastic applause that followed the movie and the orchestra's flawless live performance of the score made that kind of contemplation impractical at the time, but on the drive home it was possible to reflect on just how anarchically funny and oddly touching Chaplin's masterpiece still is nearly 80 years after its premiere.
Although talkies were already the rage by 1931, Chaplin kept City Light s voice free, convinced that The Tramp would be more of a universal character if he didn't speak. There's a soundtrack with music and synchronized sound effects
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23:31:32 06/20/10
The Winning Ticket
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What: The Golden Ticket
Where: Opera Theatre of St. Louis
When: through June 26, 2010
[ (L to R) Daniel Okulitch as Willy Wonka and Michael Kepler Meo as Charlie in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's 2010 production of The Golden Ticket . Copyright: Ken Howard, 2010]
One of the many admirable things about Opera Theatre is the company's support for new works. Their thirty-five seasons are strewn with national and world premieres; an encouraging sign for a genre often depicted in popular entertainment as stodgy and old-fashioned. This year's new kid on the block— The Golden Ticket , an adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1964 children's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory —is an appropriately tasty concoction of juvenile humor, adult wit, and musical invention with just the right amount of creepiness.
Composer Peter Ash has an impressive conducting resume, so it's perhaps not surprising that his work makes ingenious and clever use of the orchestra. Delicate ensemble passages alternate with great whoops and rushes of sound and unexpected instrumental combinations abound. The score is peppered with musical jokes, including characteristic music for the four badly behaved children who come to grief in Willy Wonka's factory. The egomaniacal Violet Beauregard, for example, sings in florid coloratura flourishes while the piggish Augustus Gloop parodies the stereotypical portly Italian tenor by spewing saccharine mock Puccini. Meanwhile Mike Teavee, who is obsessed with violent television, stutters machine-gun staccato passages.
As the Artistic Director of the Roald Dahl Foundation, librettist Donald Sturrock brings an insider's perspective to the words that accompany Mr. Ash's music. Fans of the book will likely be delighted to discover that the stage adaptation includes not only the major elements of the published version of the original novel, but bits and pieces of Dahl's numerous revisions as well—including, happily, a 1973 re-write that changes the Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka's factory from racist stereotypes to oddball aliens. It's literate enough to keep adults engaged but chockablock with sufficient jokes to hold the attention of all but the youngest children—no small accomplishment.
Opera Theatre has assembled a stellar cast for this eccentric piece. Baritone Daniel Okulitch exudes impish delight as both the magical king of confections, Willy Wonka, and the mysterious shopkeeper Mr. Know. Vocally, the part sounds like quite a challenge, but he's more than up to it.
The roles of the four awful children are filled by four wonderful performers. Soprano Tracy Dahl (no relation, as far as I can see) handles Violet Beauregard's demanding vocal pyrotechnics with ease and is a convincing stage brat. On opening night Countertenor David Trudgeon rattled off Mike Teavee's opening aria with such superhuman precision that he got a burst of spontaneous applause from the audience. Mezzo Jennifer Rivera's Veruca Salt—the classic spoiled rich kid—is almost unnervingly monstrous in her greed, and tenor Andrew Drost's Augustus Gloop is the epitome of repellant gluttony.
Although occasionally swamped by the orchestra, boy soprano Michael Kepler Meo is nevertheless a charming Charlie Bucket, with a clear voice and solid enunciation. Tenor Frank Kelley is appealing as Charlie's lovable Grandpa Joe and in fine voice as well. Although a Gerdine Young Artist and therefore relatively new on the scene, Mezzo Jennifer Berkebile makes a strong impression as both the mistress of Wonka's exotic brigade of Turkish squirrels and the self-admiring television hostess Candy Mallow.
Making his Opera Theatre debut, conductor Timothy Redmond skillfully leads the orchestra through a score which, while clearly demanding, also sounds like rather a lot of fun to play. Chorus Master Sandra Horst has, once again, done a fine job with her singers, who are called upon to play a number of important roles throughout the evening, from sinister gargoyles to chattering squirrels to eccentric Oompa Loompas, who provide the moral for the downfall of each bad child in amusing rhymed couplets.
Video designer Greg Emetaz, set designer Bruno Schwengl, costumer Martin Pakledinaz and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind all go above and beyond the call of duty to handle the exotic characters and the many scene changes in Mr. Sturrock's libretto, especially during the tour of Willy Wonka's magical factory. My congratulations to them all. Stage director James Robinson does a nice job pulling it all together although here, as in his Marriage of Figaro , he seems overly found of blocking some key scenes as though there were no audience outside of house center.
There aren't that many operas out there that are family friendly in the sense that they can be enjoyed by all ages. Children's opera, like children's theatre, tends to be its own genre. The Golden Ticket is, happily, family friendly, mixing elements of opera, musical theatre, dance and even video into something akin to Willy Wonka's Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum. Unlike that gum, though, it can be enjoyed without risking transformation into a giant blueberry.
Opera Theatre presents The Golden Ticket in rotating repertory with the rest of the season through June 26th at the Loretto-Hilton center, 130 Edgar Road on the Webster University campus. For more information, you may call 314-961-0644 or visit opera-stl.org .
A blog bonus: video of American Lyric Theater 's workshop of The Golden Ticket :
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22:41:56 05/08/10
Notes on the Music 12 - You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet
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[The twelfth in a series of postings on the music in my show Just a Song at Twilight: The Golden Age of Vaudeville . Performances are March 26 and 27 at the Kranzberg Center in St. Louis; tickets at licketytix.com .]
Lew Brown / Carl Schraubstader: Last Night on the Back Porch (I Loved Her Best of All) (1923) – One good Jolson tune from Bombo deserves another. Lest there be any doubt that this was designed as a showcase for "Jolie's" unique talents, the first verse includes his catch phrase "you ain't heard nothin' yet". Many others have performed it since, including Bing Crosby and our own St. Louis Ragtimers. The score includes a whopping total of eight (!) verses. Only Jolson could get away with that many, so I don't even try. Given my ethnic background, however, I couldn't pass up the cheesy Italian dialect patter - or the more suggestive lyrics. There might have been even more lyrics that were never recorded. The sheet music has the following note at the bottom of the page of extra verses: "For community sings or house parties continue indefinitely by substituting KISS-HUG-SQUEEZE etc for LOVE using words of first chorus: - viz I kiss her in the morning And I kiss her at night".
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05:04:21 03/25/10
Notes on the Music 11 - La Bombo
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[The eleventh in a series of postings on the music in my show Just a Song at Twilight: The Golden Age of Vaudeville . Performances are March 26 and 27 at the Kranzberg Center in St. Louis; tickets at licketytix.com .]
Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman and Dan Russo: Toot, Toot, Tootsie (1921) – One of Al Jolson's signature tunes, "Tootsie" is from a show called Bombo (pictured) which, the title not withstanding, was a gigantic hit. Jolson, in his usual blackface, played a slave who gets dragged off to the New World with Columbus. The song wasn't in the original show (no "choo-choo trains" in 1492) but was interpolated by Jolson during the show's three-year tour. The altered lyrics in the second run through the refrain aren't in the printed score but are in Jolson's recording, so I regard them as Canonical. Jolson's bravura performance of this in The Jazz Singer (1927) demonstrates why he could get away with calling himself "the world's greatest entertainer".
06/20/10
