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Post by tonyloco on Jan 1, 2018 20:26:31 GMT
I’m definitely leaving this one to the youngsters. I will stick to Bat Out of Hell, Company and 42nd Street for my theatre entertainment in 2018 - or have I got it wrong?
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 1, 2018 15:41:10 GMT
Enough already with the Christmas breakages. Yesterday I had to buy a toilet. I don't wish to make light of what must have been a rather traumatic situation on New Year's Eve, but needing to buy a whole new toilet makes one wonder just what broke the old one and Major Bloodnok's expostulation on the Goon Show comes to mind: "No more curried eggs for me!" Do I have to get my coat? But a broken washing machine is definitely no joke and you have my sincere sympathy. I hope the malfunction did not include the floor of your kitchen, or whatever room the machine is in, being flooded with soapy water. So was that the third breakdown: coffee machine, toilet and washing machine? If so then you will be safe for a while because misfortunes always come in threes, an aphorism that I find generally to be true.
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Mame
Dec 31, 2017 16:56:38 GMT
Post by tonyloco on Dec 31, 2017 16:56:38 GMT
I saw the original West End production back in 1969 starring Ginger Rogers. Of course it was great to see the legendary Ms Rogers live on stage but, as far as I recall, it was a somewhat muted performance and for my money she was very much eclipsed when the wonderful Juliet Prowse took over. Prowse had already wowed London in Sweet Charity and brought rather more energy to the part of Mame than Rogers had done. Curiously, Ginger smothered her cheeks in Vaseline so that they glowed, and this can be seen online in a newsreel clip from the opening night at Drury Lane. I suppose Sheridan Smith is the most obvious person at the moment to play Mame with Samantha Spiro as Vera or possibly as Miss Gooch, but I don't have any strong views on the casting.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 31, 2017 16:18:46 GMT
My three highlights were 42nd Street, right from the opening bars of the overture with Jae Alexander rising up out of the pit to take a twinkling bow and of course the staircase at the end; On the Town with Bernstein's superb score magnificently performed in great style by a very talented cast and wonderful orchestra and – surprise, surprise, – Bat Out of Hell which despite its flaws like naff choreography and a rather silly plot, engaged me totally and reminded me that musical theatre is a very broad church. Oh, and I have to give a bonus vote to John Wilson's Oklahoma! at the proms for a glorious performance of what is arguably the most significant work in the whole history of musical theatre.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 30, 2017 14:16:11 GMT
The cast recording of "Cowardy Custard" is on Spotify and 'The Boy Actor' is there as I remembered. It's just the opening lines, a few from later in the poem and then the closing lines, taking all of 40 seconds, but wonderfully evocative. It is recited by John Moffat and is the last piece in the main programme before the final medley.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 29, 2017 23:13:45 GMT
You are a veritable goldmine of interesting anecdotes and goss tonyloco! Thanks BurlyBeaR – I'm glad I am not boring people too much with my stream of consciousness ramblings. And from now on I will spell your moniker correctly!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 29, 2017 14:33:34 GMT
I have just realised that BurleyBeaR and Oleanna are discussing a high E that should be sung by Carlotta in Phantom. I have a little anecdote about that which I heard from an acquaintance who got it from an acquaintance..... It seems that at some point some years after Phantom first appeared that Rosemary Ashe, who had created Carlotta, was returning to the role once again. I don't know exactly where or when but apparently in rehearsal, Rosemary opted not to sing the high E, to which the MD insisted:
"Oh, you must sing the high E because it's what Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote."
"No" replied Rosie, "it's what I wrote! It was my suggestion that Carlotta would sing that note because back in 1986 I had it in my voice, which I no longer do, so let's get on with me singing the lower option now."
That may be apocryphal but it's a nice story nevertheless.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 29, 2017 14:12:51 GMT
And thanks from me as well, harrietcraig. I'm glad I remembered it as what it was. That confirms that my brain still seems to be in good working order, regardless of what is happening to the rest of me as tempus fugit!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 29, 2017 0:03:20 GMT
I realise he doesn't fit The Great American Songbook but I think it a shame Noel Coward didn't leave us any Christmas songs. The Master could have given us a classic in his typically witty, satirical manner.* * I now hold my breath whilst someone unearths a Christmas classic by him. I think you are safe, tmesis. I have been through the index of the complete lyrics of Noel Coward and I cannot see anything remotely Christmassy. But I have a very vague recollection that in 'Cowardy Custard' there is a quote from Coward as a very young actor, maybe even while still a child, about being in a show at Christmas and the thrill of hearing the curtain going up. It is not a song, just a rather evocative piece of writing.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 28, 2017 23:03:53 GMT
It really is a miracle of concision with each act around half an hour (act two is only around 25 mins and what a huge amount happens there.) Despite this concision though, acts one, three and four seem to have the expansiveness of a Wagner opera, with seemingly huge amounts of time to put over the changing, and gradually more heightened, emotions. But then you realise that Puccini's genius has created an aural illusion and very little actual time has passed. I can't think of another opera that achieves this so well. Yes, I agree. Puccini really got it right with Bohème and we have to thank that great Aussie diva Nellie Melba for saving it from being seriously under-rated during its early years. It's a fascinating story as told by my colleague Roger Neill: "It is not widely appreciated that Melba had a crucial role in building La bohème to be one of the most popular and widely performed operas in the world – a status it holds to this day. Somehow or other, Nellie decided that Puccini was ‘the coming man’ and that Bohème was a masterwork, so she took herself off to the composer’s home town, Lucca, in order to study the role of Mimì with him. Neither the opera nor its author had any great reputation when she did this, so, instead of taking her proposals directly to Covent Garden or the Met, she formed her own company in America and toured the piece across the continent from Philadelphia to San Francisco. That done, Melba felt ready to present the work at Covent Garden, and this she did – opening there on 1 July 1899. The following year, to great acclaim, she took Bohème to the Met in New York and by this stage the opera was firmly established – with Melba occupying the major role, a situation she maintained over the forthcoming quarter century, right up to her Covent Garden farewell. The Scottish prima donna (and Director of Chicago Opera), Mary Garden, wrote in her memoirs: You know, the last note of the first act of La bohème is the last note that comes out of Mimì’s throat. It is a high C, and Mimì sings it when she walks out of the door with Rodolfo. She closes the door and then takes that note… The note came floating over the auditorium of Covent Garden: it left Melba’s throat, it left Melba’s body, it left everything, and came over like a star and passed us in our box, and went out into the infinite. I have never heard anything like it in my life, not from any other singer, ever. It just rolled over the hall of Covent Garden." Having written the above, I wonder whether any of that story is retold in the current Covent Garden 'Bohème' programme? I have related elsewhere that when I first arrived in London from Sydney in March 1960, one of the first things I saw at Covent Garden was La bohème with Jussi Björling and Rosanna Carteri, performed in those same 1899 sets and they were still more than serviceable. And despite the fact that he was serious ill, Björling's singing was just perfection.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 28, 2017 13:23:23 GMT
I really enjoyed this on Christmas Day - probably more than when I saw it live (or maybe it was just the large amounts of Guinness and red wine I had consumed that coloured my response.) Of course you enjoyed it, tmesis. No doubt the Christmas booze helped, but it was a musically strong performance of one of the great masterpieces in the modern operatic canon. Despite the unsatisfactory aspects of the production, how could one not respond to Puccini's brilliant testament to the joys and sorrows of youth, especially when it was played so well and sung by such an accomplished cast – and we didn't have to shell out any money to see it with the excellent view of the BBC TV cameras, apart from what we pay for our TV Licence (and I get mine for free now as I am so old anyway). Leaving aside my response to the production, the biggest annoyance for me was the usual unwanted stuff at the start covering rehearsals and interviews with singers and such, a distraction totally absent from the broadcast of 'Oklahoma!' from the Proms.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 28, 2017 13:00:06 GMT
My laugh out loud highlight was Act 3’s moving hut! Yes, moving edifices are well-liked at that address in Bow Street. I seem to remember a recent production of Verdi's 'Don Carlo' in which the tomb of Emperor Charles V never stopped wandering around the stage. No wonder the poor dead monarch appeared in Act V as he had not been allowed to rest in peace in his restless resting place!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 28, 2017 1:04:35 GMT
I'll only book another Jones Boheme if the world's most amazing cast is scheduled to appear. Other than that I'll wait until they either start showing something like the Parisian Boheme in space or they revive the Copley version. Now that's an interesting thought, Coated. In attending productions of both opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House for some 57 years, I am not aware of any old production of an opera ever being revived once it has been replaced by a new one. With the ballet, we did have what was supposed to be a revival of the old much-loved 'Sleeping Beauty' a few years ago, except that it wasn't actually a fully accurate reproduction because one of the most memorable moments of that old production was totally missing, namely Aurora's first appearance across the back of the stage through a kind of colonnade before she entered onto the main stage. To see Fonteyn making that first entrance was a moment of sheer magic that one never forgot.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 27, 2017 16:55:06 GMT
He has his own website which details his UK tours. Have a feeling he might have already done London concert but check it out. Sadly, the John Wilson Orchestra website says 'No Tour Dates' and 'No current news or announcements'
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 27, 2017 16:49:21 GMT
By gosh you are so right. It will never last. Well said, Mr Snow! I believe that when the National Theatre did its famous production of Oklahoma! in 1998, one of the women in the Hammerstein family commented that it was the first time she realised that the show was actually about anything!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 26, 2017 13:55:27 GMT
Well, I am happy for him. But when asked was Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world, John Lennon famously replied: "He's not even the best drummer in the band!" Is that true or an urban myth? Never mind. As Ryan rightly says: "They'll give a knighthood to anyone nowadays" so Ringo might as well have one, even though he didn't win any medals at sport or appearing in a much-loved TV soap.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 26, 2017 12:26:53 GMT
I thoroughly enjoyed the showing of the John Wilson 'Oklahoma!' on TV yesterday. All the performers seem to have got even better since last August! Seriously, I really couldn't fault it and I found more depth in all of the characterisations than when I was at the performance, even Aunt Eller seemed OK. All the dramatic details worked for me and the climax of the ballet was tremendous. And I haven't even mentioned Robert Fairchild...!
Does anybody know what John Wilson will be doing next in London, either at the Proms or anywhere else?
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 26, 2017 12:10:05 GMT
I am sorry to report that I was disappointed in the new ROH production of La bohème shown on TV yesterday. As expected, it was musically strong under Pappano's conducting and I thought all the singers did well, although personally I found Nicole Car strangely unconvincing. Perhaps because she seemed too 'modern' and I detected a slight touch of hysteria in her singing, right from her first aria, although I did enjoy her in the last act.
My main quibble was with the production that seemed to be trying to be faithful to the original setting of the opera in 1830 Paris and yet included details that I thought rather hard to believe. For example, the garret in which the four bohemians were living was freezing cold, a fact that was made perfectly clear when they had to burn Rodolfo's play to keep warm and yet they seemed happy to have an open skylight with a ladder going through it. When Mimì arrived asking for a light for her candle, she said she was short of breath from having climbed the stairs, presumably from having been outside, and yet she had neither a coat nor a shawl, although the bohemians had put on warm clothes and large velvet hats in order to go outside to a café. And Mimì left the garret with Rodolfo to go outside, again with no shawl or coat and neither she nor Rodolfo seemed to notice this. Apart from the open skylight, I wasn't totally convinced by the design of the garret, especially as it is supposed to have a large window to admit light for Marcello to paint and for Mimì to be bathed in moonlight for the final duet. And, as far as I recall, there was virtually no change in the rather flat, bright lighting of the set for the whole of the act, despite being told how dark it was after Rodolfo had extinguished his own candle and they are scrabbling around in the darkness looking for Mimì's key ('Al buio non si trova') when their hands meet for 'Che gelida manina'.
Act II was a spectacular bit of staging but Café Momus seemed to be a rather grand indoor restaurant with high quality crystal glasses and crockery and not the popular boulevard café where the shenanigans of Musetta could be witnessed by the crowds in the street who in this case had to be looking into the restaurant through closed windows.
Act III gave us a very odd kind of inn that seemed to be just a single small hut so one wondered how Marcello and Musetta could actually be living there with Musetta giving singing lessons to the guests. I didn't mind the absence of the customs barrier at a gate to the city although it is supposed to be part of the setting.
Act IV also gave me another worry about Mimì's poor dress sense when she arrived in a topless frock with no coat or shawl, even though she tells us how cold her hands are and she would love to have a muff.
Sorry to be distracted by these production details but this is a flagship production at the Royal Opera House on which a lot of money has been spent and it is intended for frequent revival. I certainly have no great urge to see it again for its own sake.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 26, 2017 11:02:08 GMT
You're right, getting mixed up with the Astaire/Rogers films. One of my frustrations with this adaptation is how it sidelines the economic pressures of the original, something that Warner Brothers musicals were known for highlighting. it keeps bits of detail (the automat, Marsh’s desperation, Peggy only having spare change left etc.) but resolutely glosses over them. As such the stakes are not high and appear artificial where there should be a feeling that they are only steps from penury. The direction could still do that with the scraps that are given but, as it is, it’s very shallow and has emotion manufactured through spectacle in its place. This all adds up to why I referred to the seventies, it isn’t period authentic and like watching a later pale imitation. Thanks, Cardinal Pirelli, for that clear explanation of your views, with which I cannot disagree. But I think it is unlikely with a big glitzy spectacular production such as we have at Drury Lane that we would get a more realistic treatment of the reality of life in New York in 1933, although you say that the direction could still have achieved more, even with the scraps that are left. For me, and for most of the other posters on this thread, the pleasure we get from the wonderful singing and dancing of all those glorious songs is why we keep returning to see it over and over and the weakness in the dramatic side of the show hardly matters.
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Feud
Dec 24, 2017 13:32:09 GMT
Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 13:32:09 GMT
PS Here's something for tmesis and Mr Snow.
On the sound track of 'Mildred Pierce' (music by Max Steiner) I noticed a bit of 'It can't be wrong'. Wiki says this melody was originally written by Steiner for the soundtrack of the Bette Davis film 'Now Voyager' in 1942. When the film was finished, Kim Gannon wrote lyrics and the song was published as 'It can't be wrong'. On composing the score for 'Mildred Pierce' in 1945, Steiner used snatches of 'It can't be wrong' in several scenes.
There was one small musical detail in 'Mildred Pierce' that jarred, namely that Ann Blyth as Mildred's wayward daughter Veda, sang the 1912 song 'The Oceana Roll' as a cabaret act in a restaurant. 'Mildred Pierce' is set in the 1930s during the great depression and I felt that the very jolly ragtime song 'The Oceana Roll' was not the kind of number that anybody would have been singing in a cabaret act in a restaurant at that time....but what do I know?!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 12:57:07 GMT
I am greatly looking forward to seeing the remaining four episodes of Feud but not sure whether to watch them on the iPlayer on my PC or wait for them to come on my smart TV, on which I am unable to get the iPlayer for various inscrutable technical reasons that I don't understand.
Like Tibidabo, I am fascinated by all the wonderful detail in every aspect of the production of Feud, and the little gems like Frank Sinatra's behaviour are priceless. If I may digress, I loved Robert Aldrich's annoyance that he had to go to New York to see 'My Fair F***ing Lady', which was sort of the 'Hamilton' of its day, and I remembered a joke that was doing the rounds when MFL was the hottest ticket on Broadway:
A man sitting in the stalls notices an empty seat between him and the next man. The first man asks why the seat is empty and is told that it was bought by the second man for his wife but she died. 'Oh' says the first man. 'What a pity. Couldn't you give the ticket to a member of your family or a friend?' 'No' says the second man. 'They are all at the funeral'.
Also, foxa, I agree that 'Mildred Pierce' is wonderful. Two solid hours of Joan Crawford, the whole Joan Crawford and nothing but Joan Crawford. Definitely a virtuoso performance that deserved the Oscar, not so much for great acting in the conventional sense but for great Joan Crawfording! If only Bette Davis's 'Now Voyager' had also been on the TV it would have completed the total immersive experience!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 12:33:13 GMT
It must have been fascinating being there at the birth of talkies. Yes, TallPaul, indeed it was. Fortunately I was a very precocious baby!
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 12:30:28 GMT
I know the RKO movies very well and what they do is a very poor copy, the reason being that they co-opt the rapid fire tempo but completely miss the psychology behind the lines. Powell, Keeler et al may not have been the greatest actors but they had a belief in their dialogue. It’s also seemingly got worse as the run has gone on, there was barely a laugh today because they stepped on each laugh line. Actually, they are Warner Brothers movies, not RKO, but I take your point about the performance you saw a few days ago. That's a shame, although quite honestly for me the production numbers are what it's all about, rather more so than in the original movies.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 1:54:05 GMT
The numbers are still fabulous but the directon of the book scenes and the strenuously exaggerated acting style I find to be shockingly poor. It’s like a trip back to the seventies. Actually, it's meant to be a trip back to the early talkies. The show is based on the Warner Brothers movie '42nd Street' made in 1933 when talking pictures were in their infancy and screen acting was exaggerated in just the way we see it at Drury Lane. Well, that's how it seems to me, having seen most of those early Warner Brothers musicals like 'Footlight Parade', 'Gold Diggers of 1933', 'Dames' and 'Gold Diggers of 1935'.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2017 1:36:57 GMT
Today (Saturday 23 December) I have binged on Crawford and Davis, having watched a BBC documentary on the two stars, episodes three and four of 'Feud', 'Mildred Pierce' and 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'. All brilliant, and my admiration for 'Feud' has now increased greatly after seeing the other three shows with the actual actresses themselves. Even before I see the remainder of 'Feud' I am ready to give the Best Actress Award for 2017 jointly to both Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, especially realising now just how accurately Jessica Lange is portraying Joan Crawford – better than I originally thought.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2017 17:28:46 GMT
Thanks Oleanna and BurleyBeaR for your further comments. I am glad that ALW mentions seeing the Ken Hill 'Phantom' himself when talking about the origins of the show. It's a pity that authoritative reference sources like Wikipedia and WEP fail to do so.
As for finding the original novel in a second hand shop, Ken Hill found his copy in 1976, which was when he created his first version of the show. ALW found his in 1984 after seeing the revised Ken Hill version. This makes sense to me as ALW had already been thinking about the subject and by finding the novel himself he now had the original source material so did not need Ken Hill and he also realised by reading the actual book that the story had the required romantic depth that he was looking for in his next project.
I look forward to the next volume of ALW's memoirs.
PS I have to admit that I have no biographies of ALW on my bookshelf and it was seeing the reference in WEP's new book (and checking with Wikipedia) that has set me off on this rant! But it rings with some other historical 'facts' relating to the origins of the classical record business where various mistakes in what should be an authoritative source still keep getting repeated in otherwise reliable publications.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2017 13:59:13 GMT
Hmmm.... that’s funny because finding the novel in a second hand bookshop is exactly how ALW describes getting the inspiration. Watch the video from 6:30 Eureka, BurleyBeaR! If you watch the video from 5:30 you will see Ken Hill's 'Phantom' at Stratford East and ALW and CM discussing whether they could turn it into a West End show but, for whatever reason, they did not at that time do anything further about it beyond having a preliminary discussion with Ken Hill. I can well believe that ALW finding a copy of the original novel in New York not that long afterwards gave ALW the raw material for him to start developing his own version for which he did not need Ken Hill, even though he had seen that KH's version proved the story was stage-worthy. As we have seen from the operatic world, there are a number of stories that have been set by different composers such as 'Manon Lescaut', 'La Boheme', 'The Barber of Seville' and various others, so why not two versions of 'Phantom of the Opera' as a musical? My gripe in all this is that ALW and CM seeing the KH version at Stratford East has somehow been forgotten in the version of the origins of the ALW 'Phantom' now put out by the RUC as in Wikipedia. Well, I think I have certainly hammered my point home in this thread and hopefully anybody reading it will now know that ALW did not just suddenly have a brainwave all by himself that POTO would be a great subject for a musical but was influenced to some extent by seeing Ken Hill's version.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2017 13:33:16 GMT
How ever could I omit 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' from my short list of songs that everybody seems to know? Later I will check out my various reference books on Porter, Gershwin, Kern and Rodgers for Christmas songs but none spring to mind at the moment.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2017 11:58:42 GMT
Thanks for this, tonyloco, seems like our WEP skimped on the detail here in order to make the story easier to tell! Actually, I am really not blaming WEP for this but rather the Wikipedia entry on ALW's Phantom of the Opera which presumably comes from the story put out by the Really Useful Company. It would not have hurt them to have mentioned Ken Hill's musical Phantom of the Opera which ALW and Cameron Mackintosh saw at Stratford East in 1984 as part of the inspiration for ALW's version. This is not just hearsay or supposition because it is a well documented fact (including in Wikipedia in the separate entry on the Ken Hill version) that CM in effect took a first option on the Stratford show personally with Ken Hill with the intention that he would produce a reworked version with ALW in the West End. I know because I was there, playing piano in the bar. There was huge excitement around the theatre that CM and ALW were going to develop the show as a vehicle for Sarah Brightman in the West End but sadly, after the initial enthusiastic discussion, nothing further was heard from CM until it became clear that CM and ALW were indeed pursuing the subject but starting from scratch and Ken Hill then was free to exploit his version in any way he wanted, so long as it was made clear that it had no connection with the ALW show.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2017 11:41:27 GMT
I should point out that, personally, I have little to no interest in Ken Hill’s adaptation, but interested to read about how each one came about and how they have (sort of) existed alongside each other for so many years! I suggest that the clue is in the name, which contains not one but two very evocative words: PHANTOM and OPERA. Think of The Phantom Menace, The Phantom, Rolls-Royce Phantom, etc, and The Beggars' Opera, A Night at the Opera, Jerry Springer: The Opera and such. Other similar words are FRANKENSTEIN as in Young Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, House of Frankenstein and also DRACULA. So it is not surprising that there are two musicals called The Phantom of the Opera. And we recently had Tibidabo telling us that Mr T ibs went to see Annie expecting to see Annie Get Your Gun (I hope I remembered that correctly). So why not two POTOs!
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