# Broadway Musicals that are closest to "Opera"?



## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Listening to _Show Boat _last night and right now, I got to thinking about which Broadway musicals are closest to "opera" in style.


_Show Boat_
Some Rodgers & Hammerstein, especially _Carousel_. 
_West Side Story_
Some Sondheim, especially _Sweeney Todd_. 

What else? Interestingly, most of the ones on my list pre-date the rock musical era that began with things like _Hair _and _Jesus Christ Superstar_.

Or maybe I am way off.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

They might be an american version of opera.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> They might be an american version of opera.


The American musical is more closely descended from Viennese operetta.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> The American musical is more closely descended from Viennese operetta.


What do you feel like is the difference?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Scopitone said:


> What do you feel like is the difference?


The added heritage of American popular music, including the variety show numbers of the 19th century and especially the influence of jazz and ragtime and tin pan alley tunes.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> The added heritage of American popular music, including the variety show numbers of the 19th century and especially the influence of jazz and ragtime and tin pan alley tunes.


So that stuff vulgarizes it, as it were, but also gives it its own flavor.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

LOST IN THE STARS by Kurt Weill is another example. It sounds more difficult to sing than the average musical of its time (the late 1940's), and its structure is "stylized" in a Brechtian way, with a "Greek chorus" and a soloist who acts as its leader. In short, it seems more European than American, notwithstanding the few jazz-like numbers in its score. It originally played Broadway but has since been staged by opera companies like Washington National Opera.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> The American musical is more closely descended from Viennese operetta.


It seems that most of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows are in the operetta tradition, as they nearly all feature waltz-time songs ("Out of My Dreams" in OKLAHOMA; "Hello, Young Lovers" in THE KING AND I; "This Nearly Was Mine" in SOUTH PACIFIC, etc.) and sometimes even need operatic or semi-operatic singing voices; this is especially true of CAROUSEL and SOUTH PACIFIC.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Scopitone said:


> So that stuff vulgarizes it, as it were, but also gives it its own flavor.


I wouldn't say "vulgarizes;" after all, the operetta is already on the popular side of things, and many composers working in popular and jazz traditions were quite serious in their intent.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Scopitone said:


> Listening to _Show Boat _last night and right now, I got to thinking about which Broadway musicals are closest to "opera" in style.
> 
> 
> _Show Boat_
> ...


Like Mahlerian says + 1

I would call them more : musicals , even the West Side Story (which I do like) has something to much swinging in it.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Bernstein's Candide

Sondheim - especially A Little Night Music and Passion 

There's some pastiche opera in The Phantom of the Opera, a good ensemble, and it refers to Robert


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

SimonTemplar said:


> Bernstein's Candide
> 
> Sondheim - especially A Little Night Music and Passion
> 
> There's some pastiche opera in The Phantom of the Opera, a good ensemble, and it refers to Robert


Good one ! How about A Quiet Place ?


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Pugg said:


> Good one ! How about A Quiet Place ?


I don't know it!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Crucible (in fact I am seeing it in 2 weeks at Glimmerglass)


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> The Crucible (in fact I am seeing it in 2 weeks at Glimmerglass)


I'm not familiar with that show at all!

The topic definitely sounds suitably operatic, though.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> The Crucible (in fact I am seeing it in 2 weeks at Glimmerglass)


Would that be the opera by Robert Ward?

Note: I just checked the Glimmerglass website and it is the opera by Robert Ward. It received the music Pulitzer in 1962. I have a recording of it and I like it. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Porgy and Bess perhaps?


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> Porgy and Bess perhaps?


I always thought of that one as an "actual" opera - though because Gershwin did so many broadway tunes ("Someone to Watch Over Me" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me" are probably my two favorite songs of all time) that it probably gets lumped in with that genre.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

_Porgy and Bess_ was largely considered a musical until the 70s when Houston Grand Opera produced it, treating it as an opera, including using the full original score.

It has seen a lot of Broadway-style productions, including its first run in the 30s where the cuts started. The recent production on Broadway and at Regent's Park in London as _The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess_ adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre Murray is very much an adaptation with the scoring redone and reduced, and significant cuts.

But it has also received other full operatic productions, by companies such as Glyndebourne, Los Angeles Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin. So if I was forced to classify, I'd say this is an opera that can easily be given a Broadway-style production.

I'm wavering on _Sweeney Todd_. It's been produced by a number of opera companies, but they by and large treat it as a musical, using mics and frequent performances. The current Glimmerglass run is an exception.

Glimmerglass started producing operetta and other borderline works early in its history; their fourth season included _The Merry Widow_, their sixth both _Trouble in Tahiti_ and _H.M.S. Pinafore_. And the operatic/old-fashioned performances without mics is not special for _Sweeney Todd_; this is how they have been performing all these works.


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## alanneilh (Aug 7, 2016)

*Musicals or opera?*



Scopitone said:


> Listening to _Show Boat _last night and right now, I got to thinking about which Broadway musicals are closest to "opera" in style.
> 
> 
> _Show Boat_
> ...


I certainly think Sweeney Todd is close to being an opera. Certainly, Porgy and Bess, Allegro, Street Scene and A Little Night Music, Death Takes A Holiday come close, as does Sunset Boulevard, which I hate. I don't think of Show Boat or West Side story as operas.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

"Opera" has always been an inclusive term. "Opera seria," "opera buffa," "opera comique, "Singspiel," "music drama," "rock opera," "Chinese opera"... Since there have been works we call operas that alternate music with spoken dialogue since the 18th century, (see Mozart, Weber, Beethoven), we can't draw a clean line on that basis. There's nothing wrong with calling _Porgy and Bess_ a musical, but it's surely as much an opera as_ The Magic Flute._ Operettas and musicals are not really distinct forms; they're just operas from different cultural traditions, employing the musical and singing styles of those traditions. I like to think of the musical as the indigenous American form of opera.


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## alanneilh (Aug 7, 2016)

Well, certainly SHOWBOAT is very close to opera. i've only seen the full Broadway production once, back in the mid 1990s. It was spectacular and the score is truly beautiful. Unfortunately, we have no DVDs of the Broadway production although PBS very much wanted to record it but there were issues with the estate. The 1936 movie version is very good; if only it were longer and had more of the original music. We have lots of the original score as 'incidental' music. Still, its very nice with Paul Robeson, Charles Winninger (original Captain Andy) and Helen MOrgan. It was also directed by James Whale, the director the Universal horror films (Frankenstein, etc.) and that helped make the film a little darker. I would love to see a good, solid Broadway production again!


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

alanneilh said:


> Well, certainly SHOWBOAT is very close to opera. i've only seen the full Broadway production once, back in the mid 1990s. It was spectacular and the score is truly beautiful. Unfortunately, we have no DVDs of the Broadway production although PBS very much wanted to record it but there were issues with the estate. The 1936 movie version is very good; if only it were longer and had more of the original music. We have lots of the original score as 'incidental' music. Still, its very nice with Paul Robeson, Charles Winninger (original Captain Andy) and Helen MOrgan. It was also directed by James Whale, the director the Universal horror films (Frankenstein, etc.) and that helped make the film a little darker. I would love to see a good, solid Broadway production again!


San Francisco Opera has a bluray/dvd available from a production they did a few years ago. They claim it's the first filmed version that comes from as much as possible the entire original score. The clips on youtube look great.

I ordered it from amazon. But I am considering returning it unopened simply because it was a financially unwise impulse buy - and a pricey one at that.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> "Opera" has always been an inclusive term. "Opera seria," "opera buffa," "opera comique, "Singspiel," "music drama," "rock opera," "Chinese opera"... Since there have been works we call operas that alternate music with spoken dialogue since the 18th century, (see Mozart, Weber, Beethoven), we can't draw a clean line on that basis. There's nothing wrong with calling _Porgy and Bess_ a musical, but it's surely as much an opera as_ The Magic Flute._ Operettas and musicals are not really distinct forms; they're just operas from different cultural traditions, employing the musical and singing styles of those traditions. I like to think of the musical as the indigenous American form of opera.


It's a good point. Aside from the age and the singing style, what's really the difference between _Wicked _and _The Magic Flute_? Not saying that _Wicked _is an opera. Just considering your conclusions here.

Singing styles changed over the history of "proper" opera, too.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

alanneilh said:


> Well, certainly SHOWBOAT is very close to opera. i've only seen the full Broadway production once, back in the mid 1990s. It was spectacular and the score is truly beautiful. Unfortunately, we have no DVDs of the Broadway production although PBS very much wanted to record it but there were issues with the estate. The 1936 movie version is very good; if only it were longer and had more of the original music. We have lots of the original score as 'incidental' music. Still, its very nice with Paul Robeson, Charles Winninger (original Captain Andy) and Helen MOrgan. It was also directed by James Whale, the director the Universal horror films (Frankenstein, etc.) and that helped make the film a little darker. I would love to see a good, solid Broadway production again!


Love the film. That reminds me that I need to pick up the Warner Archive DVD one of these days.

There's a studio CD from the late 80's that covers most of the original score. It's three or four discs, with alternate takes. (I only listen to the digital versions, so I forget how many physical CDs it covers.) It's wonderful. And I was surprised at some of the songs when I first listened to it, knowing only the '36 and '51 films.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Scopitone said:


> It's a good point. Aside from the age and the singing style, what's really the difference between _Wicked _and _The Magic Flute_?


The Magic Flute has nice sounding music and Wicked sounds like a 90s Disney film?


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## alanneilh (Aug 7, 2016)

wow, thanks so much about the SF Opera Showboat dvd... i'm going to get that!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Somewhat less known: "The Most Happy Fella" by Frank Loesser. Back in 1956 Goddard Lieberson released the original cast album both as a single disc (the norm) and as a three disc set (like an opera).

My favorite Broadway "operetta" - "She Loves Me" - revived this year.

And the through-sung musical has certainly become common although the musical styles vary a lot: "Hamilton" for instance.

p.s. Saw a production of "Show Boat" in London several months ago. It didn't hold up all that well for me. But that may just be the production, itself.

Edit - As I recall, there are a few spoken lines in "Hamilton," but no book scenes.


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