2002-3 Broadway Season Wrap-Up

There is a store in New York that every film score collector knows about. They're a little pricey, but they carry many out of print CDs and LPs and a fair amount of used ones as well (again, not very cheap). The place is called Footlight Records, and it is the perfect embodiment for the reason why I am writing a wrap-up to the 2002-2003 Broadway Season for a film score website. (I do have a point, your Honor, if you will just indulge me.) While Footlight is not a very big store, it carries two major genre of music: film music and theater music, and while the store attracts the same type of collector (passionate music lovers), rarely do the twains meet. But they do on a rare occasion (me, me, me), and I would love the gap to close just a little between the two factions who not only share common composers, but also the love of things dramatic.

This past Broadway season, fans of film and film music have had a lot to be interested in. First, more than ever, movie stars are making their presence known on the Great White Way, so much so that many productions closed after the star leaves. This season, we saw Hollywood exports like Edie Falco, Stanley Tucci, Judd Hirsh, Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei, Mary Stuart Masterson, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Newman and Antonio Banderas on the Broadway stage.

Secondly, Broadway is now a Hollywood vault-dipper, meaning Broadway shows are now adapting well-known "name" products for the stage, which is a complete opposite to 30 years ago, when play and musical adaptations were adapted to the silver screen. This season, such shows like Enchanted April, Nine (based on Fellini's 81/2) Dance of the Vampire (based on Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers), Urban Cowboy and of course, Hairspray, made their way to the stage. We also got revival of shows past that were made into hit or fan favorite movies: Flower Drum Song, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Gypsy and Man of La Mancha.

However, if that wasn't enough, this season also saw the presence of three film score favorites who this season made a big splash (well two made a big splash, one made a noble ripple). They are Michel Legrand, Marc Shaiman and Baz Luhrmann.

Baz Luhrmann, you ask? Well, who is the man who single-handedly took a defibrillator to the dead art of movie musicals with Moulin Rouge in 2001 which then paved the way for an Best Picture Oscar win a year later for Chicago? Luhrmann's cinematic vision has always been influenced by music (Strictly Ballroom), but it was Moulin Rouge that proved the perfect marriage of auteur direction with a stale Hollywood genre. Anyone who loves movie-making and movie music cannot deny the impact of Luhrmann's movies. So, it was fascinating to see the show that actually inspired the making of Moulin Rouge on the Broadway stage. The fact that it's an opera should not deter you at all.

La Boheme is Luhrmann's masterpiece. A stunning feast for the eyes and ears, it not only introduces opera to a younger audience, but reinvents one of the most popular operas in the world into Broadway fare. The look is remarkably similar to the look of Moulin Rouge and the tone (while respectful of its source material) is also playfully irreverent (mostly due to the time change to the 1950s). There's also a built-in gimmick that begs you to see the show more than once. Since no one could sing an opera for eight performances a week, there are three different casts for the leads and two for the secondary leads. Each cast is amazing, which is why the Tony Award committee gave up comparing the casts and gave all 10 members of the revolving cast a special Tony. I don't know how to say it any clearer: go see this show! It is my favorite show of the season. (Cast CD on Dreamworks Records)

My third favorite show of the season is the musicalized version of John Waters' Hairspray. (My second favorite is the revival of Nine with Antonio Banderas.) Hairspray garnered the most Tony nominations of any show this season, and there's a good reason for that. It is a happy, feel-good, slightly off-colored, crowd-pleaser of a musical. Marc Shaiman, the composer of such fine scores as The American President and A Few Good Men, has created a bouncy score that bounces between bubblegum pop, R+B and catchy '60s rock and roll. There's a reason why nine months after it opened, they're still doing standing room only business. (Cast CD on Sony Classical)

Michel Legrand, the grand French composer of such movies as The Thomas Crown Affair, The Umbrellas of Cherboug and Ice Station Zebra made his Broadway debut with a chamber musical called Amour in October -- and it closed after 17 performances. Starring Malcom Gets and Melissa Errico, this charming but woefully small musical was about a French man who finds himself being able to pass through walls. The musical benefited from a beautiful score but saddled with an anachronistic English translation by Jeremy Sams from the original French libretto by Dider-van Cauweleart. Thankfully, six months after it closed (an eternity in the theater world), the original cast was reassembled to record the Original Cast CD. With five posthumous Tony nominations (including one for Legrand), hopefully this show will find a home in regional theaters across the country. (Cast CD on Sh-K-Boom Records to be released in July)

All three of these shows will have a song performed on the Tony Award show on June 8th on CBS, which will be hosted by Hugh Jackman (yes, Wolverine). Jackman will make his Broadway debut in a bio-musical on the life of songwriter-performer Peter Allen next season.

But, if you want more musical samplings, you may want to check out Broadway Today (Sony Classical, 87994), a compilation CD akin to the now defunct Varese Sarabande year-end CDs which showcased the score highlights of a given year. Broadway Today not only brings samples songs from the latest season (Hairspray, Movin' Out and La Boheme) but also holdover shows that are still running. They include the wonderful Mel Brooks adaptation of The Producers, the ABBA-songs show Mamma Mia, last year's Tony winning adaptation of Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Elton John and Tim Rice's original stage musical, Aida. This is a good place to start for the Broadway novice.

Next season, we have on schedule the stage adaptation of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, revivals of Little Shop of Horrors, The Wiz and Fiddler on the Roof and a musical based on the life and songs of Boy George called Taboo. Whets your appetite, doesn't it?
 
 

CD Review:

Amour *** 1/2

MICHEL LEGRAND AND JEREMY SAMS

Sh-K-Boom 4003-2

28 tracks - 74:09

If there were a musical equivalent to a French cream puff, it'd probably look like Amour, the transplanted French musical by film composer Michel Legrand which had a brief run on Broadway in 2002 and is being released on CD with the original cast. In an English translation by Jeremy Sams, the generically titled Amour (in Paris it was called Le Passe Muraille, which is loosely translated as The Passer-through-Walls) was too much of a chamber operetta to compete with the big guns of Hairspray and La Boheme.

Legrand, known for melancholy love songs such as "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "The Windmills of Your Mind," is the perfect composer to adapt Marcel Ayme's fairy tale novel Le Passe Muaille to the stage, since his most famous work may be the film musical The Umbrellas of Cherboug. Beautifully melodic and charming in every way, Legrand's whimsical music keeps the show interesting, but it simply didn't translate well to the American stage (at least not with this odd translation by Sams). On CD, however, it plays like a musicalized radio drama and interestingly enough, works much better.

The shy and lonely Dusoleil (Malcolm Gets) works in a dreary office in post-World War II Paris. He's a hard worker, pretty much anti-social and is hopelessly infatuated with the married but lonely Isabelle (Melissa Errico). One evening, Dusoleil discovers that he can walk through walls and uses his new found powers to steal from the rich and give to the poor; play mind-games with his tyrant boss; and ultimately woo Isabelle.

Errico's Isabelle get the best songs of the score since she usually sings her ballads to herself as she tries to escape her shut-in life via magazine stories about the rich and famous. "Other People's Stories" is the best song of the show and Errico infuses it with hope and innocence. Other highlights on the CD are Norm Lewis' "Painter's Song" and the wonderful Overture which is hummed beautifully by the entire cast.

Sh-K-Boom Records should be commended for recording this show six months after the show closed with the original cast reassembled and meticulous production values by Joel Moss and Kurt Deutsch. It was obviously a labor of love for all involved. While it may not be a successful show, there are many beautiful songs and should find life in regional theaters. Legrand has announced that his next stage musical will probably be an adaptation of the 1967 Jacques Demy movie musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Girls of Rochefort), for which Legrand wrote the original score. Let's hope it gets the care and attention that Amour received.
 

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