Friday, June 10, 2005
SOUTH PACIFIC continued...
Yeah...it was pretty great, and Peter said the performance last night with the paying audience, was packed to the walls of that great Hall, and that they loved it. Reviews have been good on this special evening, and Peter had a good time doing it.
As you can tell from my blog of yesterday, I was very moved by the event, and came away with a deep admiration for Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jason Danieli, and that lovely Reba...I was also once more reminded of how tasteful and appropriate my husband is in everything he performs : no matter how supporting the part, he makes it count and he does it in a way that is true and resonant.
The performance was, I once again hasten to state, supported by the most lush of orchestral sounds, as there must have been at least 40 (Peter told me 45) musicians, all of whom gifted and expressive. And the lighting was very pretty, as scenes changed. So the thing was magnificent to see and to hear.
But the thing that got to me most was how much I have missed hearing and performing with voices like the ones I heard yesterday morning. I remember vividly what it felt like to stand stage left in BIG RIVER and listen to the dear (departed now) Ron Richardson sing FREE AT LAST...the song, and that voice made tears involuntarily stream down my face, and before I went back onstage I always had to repair my makeup!! Good, large, true and luscious voices must be used in the true singing of any great musical. To cast inferior voices is an art crime of the highest order. I had lost sight of that truth.
AND, how careful one must be in the cutting and reshaping of any classical musical, if one plans to direct and produce it. I now realize what a disservice we may do to a show if we do not trust the power inherent in it's original shape and in how the orchestations, as originally written, aid and serve the dramatic development of the story. But if you do not not have the orchestra,or the voices, and do not trust the book, you can make severe mistakes in the story-telling. I see that now.
Sure, one can "make do", but after seeing and hearing the SOUTH PACIFIC, I asked myself "WHY?"...a lesson learned. Really,what are we in this art form for if not to do our best with the best? Even to aspire to the sort of work Brian Stokes Mitchell produces means that one must work harder to produce the best, no matter how futile that struggle may seem to be at times... because one experience of sitting in the presence of such a gift is more important that I had remembered. All the rest is just trying.
I will do a reading of a new musical next week for Lonny Price. More on that later.
For now...love.
As you can tell from my blog of yesterday, I was very moved by the event, and came away with a deep admiration for Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jason Danieli, and that lovely Reba...I was also once more reminded of how tasteful and appropriate my husband is in everything he performs : no matter how supporting the part, he makes it count and he does it in a way that is true and resonant.
The performance was, I once again hasten to state, supported by the most lush of orchestral sounds, as there must have been at least 40 (Peter told me 45) musicians, all of whom gifted and expressive. And the lighting was very pretty, as scenes changed. So the thing was magnificent to see and to hear.
But the thing that got to me most was how much I have missed hearing and performing with voices like the ones I heard yesterday morning. I remember vividly what it felt like to stand stage left in BIG RIVER and listen to the dear (departed now) Ron Richardson sing FREE AT LAST...the song, and that voice made tears involuntarily stream down my face, and before I went back onstage I always had to repair my makeup!! Good, large, true and luscious voices must be used in the true singing of any great musical. To cast inferior voices is an art crime of the highest order. I had lost sight of that truth.
AND, how careful one must be in the cutting and reshaping of any classical musical, if one plans to direct and produce it. I now realize what a disservice we may do to a show if we do not trust the power inherent in it's original shape and in how the orchestations, as originally written, aid and serve the dramatic development of the story. But if you do not not have the orchestra,or the voices, and do not trust the book, you can make severe mistakes in the story-telling. I see that now.
Sure, one can "make do", but after seeing and hearing the SOUTH PACIFIC, I asked myself "WHY?"...a lesson learned. Really,what are we in this art form for if not to do our best with the best? Even to aspire to the sort of work Brian Stokes Mitchell produces means that one must work harder to produce the best, no matter how futile that struggle may seem to be at times... because one experience of sitting in the presence of such a gift is more important that I had remembered. All the rest is just trying.
I will do a reading of a new musical next week for Lonny Price. More on that later.
For now...love.
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