![]() ![]() Yes, Irwin said, he was one of the acrobats behind Montserrat Caballe as she descended the stairs in the title role of Turandot - "leaning on two dwarfs," Zambello added correctly. "I don't know how far back do you go with the company," Irwin challenged the moderator, SFO Director of Music Administration Kip Cranna, "but I made my debut here in 1978." San Francisco Opera presented an extensive discussion this week of the work with a panel consisting of Gockley, stage director Francesca Zambello, conductor John DeMain, soprano Heidi Stober (Magnolia), and Bill Irwin, introduced as making his SFO debut in the role of Captain Andy. As a top tier opera company, we are able to present this work the way Kern and Hammerstein intended it, and we are able to cast the type of rich, legitimate voices required to give it its luster. The original orchestrations called for an orchestra of 50, two choruses, dancers, and a large cast of principals. The commercial theater sector, which gave birth to it and many others of its genre, simply cannot afford to remount these works on their terms. In this day and age, only opera companies command the resources necessary to give a grand work like Show Boat its artistic due. ![]() Photo by Robert Kusel/Lyric Opera of ChicagoĪgainst the old days of big-budget Broadway productions, Gockley said: The second issue is the treatment, development, alteration of the work against changing sensibilities through the decades. One, the subject and nature of "both a poignant love story and a powerful reminder of America’s bitter legacy of racism" about life on the show boat Cotton Blossom in the 1880s. Back in 1982, his Houston Grand Opera restored much of the 1927 score and dialogue, toured the production in the U.S., presented it on Broadway, recorded an EMI best-seller, and took the work to Cairo for the inauguration of the Cairo National Culture Centre.īeyond that, there are two sets of historical consideration. "Dyed-in-the-wool European-oriented devotees," Gockley says, initially oppose Show Boat presented as an opera, but once they see it with a mix of operatic and Broadway voices, there is acceptance. SFO General Director David Gockley, who has a significant history of his own with Show Boat, is convinced that it is "an American operetta" that belongs to opera houses along such standard operatic fare as Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow, and the work Gockley made routinely acceptable for operatic treatment: Porgy & Bess. The Opera House is-I believe-the appropriate venue for these great classic musicals that require full-voiced, 'legit' singing." "One memorable song follows another, each an enduring thread in the fabric of American popular culture.San Francisco Opera's premiere of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II Show Boat on June 1 is an event that goes far beyond "just another opera." For starters, of course, it is not an opera, but - according to most - a musical. According to General Director David Gockley, "Show Boat will be done in grand opera fashion in the way the creators conceived. "No one should miss it" (Chicago Sun-Times). Patricia Racette, Heidi Stober and Nathan Gunn head a dazzling cast. ![]() The magnificent Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II score, which includes such classic songs as "Ol’ Man River", "Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man," "Make Believe" and "You Are Love," will sound glorious "under the authoritative baton of music-theater maestro John DeMain" (Chicago Tribune). Director Francesca Zambello’s grand-scale production is "a triumph-a stylish, fast-paced and colorful show that had the capacity audience on its feet, cheering loud and long" (Chicago Classical Review). A true classic of American musical theater, this tale of life on the Mississippi from the 1880s to the 1920s is both a poignant love story and a powerful reminder of the bitter legacy of racism. ![]()
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