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Post by tonyloco on Mar 4, 2020 15:02:19 GMT
Yes, I suppose 'don't go' is the right advice for people who love the operatic repertoire in its more tradition form (as they believe it was conceived by its composers) and know that the production is likely not to please them.
But if they don't go then how are they going to hear the greatest singers of our day (including Lise Davidson) live on the operatic stage?
And people who have paid up to £264 for their ticket (as with the current Fidelio) might also be inclined to boo if they felt the production spoiled their enjoyment of the musical side of the performance. Not applauding might just not feel enough to compensate for the £264 spent on the ticket – and even the tickets in the cheaper parts of the house are substantially more expensive for Fidelio than for a more routine performance that is not a new production starring top singers.
I do not wish to be offensive here – I am merely trying to put the other side of the argument about booing at the opera house as in a debate.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 4, 2020 9:40:54 GMT
By the way, here's another tangential anecdote further off the main subject!
Back in the day, one of my friends worked in the box office of the Royal Opera House during the heyday of Fonteyn and Nureyev. One day a rather rough woman came to the box office and asked:
"Are they on tonight"
"Who?" enquired my friend.
"You know! 'Im and 'Er" replied the woman.
This being too good to pass over, my friend decided to turn these into Russian names so they became 'Imanoff and Ermanova', which is how we always referred to Nureyev and Fonteyn thereafter.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 3, 2020 22:44:41 GMT
Wasn't Alicia Markova Alice Marks. I always thought that Deborah Bull was a great dancer who didn't change her name. You always remembered it. Yes, and Margot Fonteyn was Margaret Hookham.
As regards Deborah Bull not changing her name, I once asked my actor/writer/TV presenter friend Christopher Lillicrap why he hadn't changed his name when he entered the theatrical profession and he answered simply:
"I got through school with it!"
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 3, 2020 15:02:24 GMT
Going off on something of a tangent, I am reminded that some years ago it was not uncommon for opera singers to change their names to seem to be more classy or more important than they actually were and singers from Australia did this all the time. They often took a new name to reflect where they were from as can be seen from the following list:
Helen Porter Mitchell became Nellie Melba (Melbourne) Florence Wilson became Florence Austral (Australia) Elsie Mary Fischer became Elsa Stralia (Australia) June Gough became June Bronhill (Broken Hill) Sarah Cohen became Syria Lamonte (more exotic) Catherine Mary Ryan became Marie Narelle Flora Flanagan became Florrie Forde Ivy Ansley became Irene Ainsley (classier) Fanny Davis became Frances Alda (her married name had been Adler) Lance Ingram became Albert Lance (because Ingram was not an easy name for the French to pronounce when he settled in Paris) Lionel Cecil Sherwood became Lionello Cecil (better for his career in Italy)
Clearly Joan Sutherland did not need to change her name because her surname was close enough to 'South Land' to identify with Australia as the Great South Land.
When I see some of today's opera stars with unpronounceable names I rather wish it was still the fashion to change to something easier to remember as well as say!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 29, 2020 19:25:38 GMT
Perhaps the best outcome would be for semi-staged concert performances with some sensible projections and appropriate acting from the principals.
That’s how the Opera North one a few years ago was done - it worked really well There is an LPO Ring Cycle at the Festival Hall next year which is a purely concert performance I think Thanks, Xanderl, for confirming Opera North. That's actually what I had in mind but I wasn't sure which company it was. I only saw it on TV but I thought it was extremely successful and did full justice to the work. I felt it must have been very satisfying to attend it live.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 29, 2020 16:04:57 GMT
Thanks for the great insight and also amazing to read that you saw Maria live a number of times getting on for 60 years ago and can share your memories with us. Thanks brexiteer for those kind words. Sharing my memories is about all I can manage to do these days as the physical decline of old age sets in, but it is always a pleasure to post something on Theatre Board. I presume you have seen what I had to say recently about going to Glyndebourne, and I have put in my two penneth about productions of Wagner's Ring cycle. I mentioned nothing specific about the Ring but I can say that my first Ring cycle was at Covent Garden in 1960 conducted by Rudolf Kempe and it was the musical experience I still remember vividly rather than the theatrical or dramatic one, which I think I found serviceable but nothing remarkable.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 29, 2020 11:13:16 GMT
Good luck, Dawnstar!
But I think the best one can expect these days is to get a superb musical performance and hope that what happens on stage is not too awful! After all, if a production adhered totally to Wagner's original stage directions I don't think we would be all that happy!
Perhaps the best outcome would be for semi-staged concert performances with some sensible projections and appropriate acting from the principals.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 29, 2020 10:52:19 GMT
I can see how there would still be some value in the communal experience of going to a concert for fans of an artist, but not sure what the difference is between a hologram and a live accompaniment to film footage of them singing. Yes, that's what I was hoping for at the Callas hologram concert but the actual hologram is so detached and unreal that any feeling of communal experience seemed to be totally absent. At least the films of Callas concerts capture real life events, which the hologram concert was not!
And of course the hologram, despite being meant to present the actual person corporeally, is totally artificial and robotic and can only do what has been captured in the digital recording. This became very apparent when the Callas hologram continued to acknowledge applause that had long since stopped. I am not surprised that the audience at the Houston concert in Sheffield began to make fun of the hologram and of course the hologram was unable to respond in any way, which would have made the whole thing even more ludicrous.
I have just looked at the video on YouTube of the Callas hologram concert and remembered that there were a couple of very impressive technical moments, the best being at the end of the Card Scene from Carmen when Callas threw the pack of cards she had been holding up into the air and the individual cards fluttered down around her to the ground. That was magical, so I can imagine holograms being used for special effects in operas or musicals but not to sustain a complete concert performance.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 28, 2020 15:01:37 GMT
They have done Elvis on the big screen but if they have done a Buddy Holly hologram tour then there must be technology to create fresh characters as Buddy died over 60 years ago. The Beatles, Abba, Sinatra etc would seem logical ones to do in the future. Yes. I went to the Maria Callas Hologram Recital at the Coliseum. The image of Maria was apparently created using a look-alike but the sound was from Callas's studio recordings.
I saw Callas live six times in the early 1960s: four times in opera (Tosca and Norma) and twice at the Royal Festival Hall in concert, all of which were memorable occasions. Callas's amazing charisma and persona worked their magic every time, and the singing wasn't bad either, apart from the last disastrous recital with Giuseppe di Stefano when her voice had almost deserted her, but she still gave a wonderful performance of being the great diva!
I found the hologram concert remarkably uneffective. The initial surprise of seeing the hologram image walk onstage soon wore off and the longer the concert went on, the less interesting it became, especially as one could see some of the on-stage orchestral players through Callas's head! My overall judgement was that I would have preferred just to listen to the recordings played on top quality reproduction equipment than look at the phoney hologram image pretending to sing. The people I was with who had never seen Callas live were also not particularly impressed.
As a PS I should say that the two productions that I have seen of Terence McNally's 1995 play Master Class with Patti LuPone and Tyne Daly gave to me a much more vivid picture of Callas, both as a woman and as a performer, than the hologram concert.
Whether the Whitney Houston Hologram Tour will be more successful remains to be seen.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 23, 2020 15:05:55 GMT
Go. It should be on every Opera lovers Bucket List. OK. Here's the tonyloco anecdote about going first to Glyndebourne. As most of you probably know, I arrived in London from Sydney in March 1960 and by May had found my daytime job at EMI. I was also still going frequently to opera, ballet and theatre whenever I could, and earning some extra money playing piano several nights a week in a hotel in Bayswater. I had a normal suit made at Burtons but the material was black. This meant that I could wear it to work with an ordinary tie and change to a red bow tie for the hotel lounge work. Then when it came the day on Sunday 19 June 1960 to go to Glyndebourne for the first time, I simply put on a black bow tie and looked correctly dressed. I don't remember what I did about eating but I may have splurged on the cheapest meal in one of the restaurants. It wasn't till later years when I had friends with cars that I indulged in the picnic part of the Glyndebourne experience and on the first visit I simply enjoyed walking through the gardens and seeing the sheep in the adjacent fields. I certainly remember that the performance of Der Rosenkavalier with Regine Crespin as the Marschallin and Anneliese Rothenberger as Sophie was glorious. I knew parts of the opera from the abridged 78rpm set with Lotte Lehman, but my first experience of the complete opera, especially in the intimate setting of the original Glyndebourne auditorium, was overwhelming. The new opera house is certainly quite attractive but not as much fun as the original small theatre built by John Christie for his wife Audrey Mildmay, the 'moderate soprano'!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 22, 2020 18:39:53 GMT
Further thoughts on The Cellist... I think one of the main problems with this was the music. The credit for this was Philip Feeney who is a very experienced composer of ballet scores. Quite rightly he incorporated a hefty chunk of Elgar's Cello Concerto and musically and choreographically this was the most satisfying part. Elsewhere there was a truly horrible arrangement of Schubert's Trout Quintet to reference on stage the famous Christopher Nupen documentary and then, when he actually did some proper composing, there was a terrible stylistic mismatch, his own efforts sounding bizarrely like something John Williams might reject from the score of Harry Potter. As I said earlier this would work much better as a 30 minute ballet and, since that's more or less the length of the Cello Concerto, I think that, exactly as it stands, should have been used as the score. Without actually seeing the ballet, I think that is a brilliant idea, tmesis.
As someone who was actually acquainted with Jacqueline du Pré as a near neighbour when she and Barenboim lived near Baker Street and who is familiar with her musical talent extremely well through working for EMI Classics for many years, both when she was performing and subsequently, the idea of creating a ballet using just the Elgar Cello Concerto would seem to me to be a particularly inspired way of doing honour to Jackie in a ballet with both skill and taste. But, alas, that has not happened!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 20:30:52 GMT
I can also imagine that to keep a theatre that large filled in what was a rather difficult location away from the rest of the main West End theatres would have caused economic problems and the building of a large commercial office block made more sense financially. 1) Tony, you use the font you are happy with, that's a direct order from the admin team on here .
2) I think part of the problem was that there were grand plans to sweep away entire blocks in that area to put major trunk roads. It would have taken out every theatre from Kingsway to Charing Cross Road, more or less. Also, I recall reading the Stoll was structurally unsound as well, which didn't help. Would love to have seen it in its glory.
Thanks theatremonkey. I note the direct order and will obey it!
As regards the demolition of the Stoll Theatre, I think I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, as a lover of theatre in all its forms, it is sad to see what was once a large and impressive theatre being demolished but it seems to have had a chequered history and never really established itself as a fully used London theatrical venue.
And we should all take comfort in the fact that there are so many wonderful theatres in London that are surviving successfully and new ones are also opening.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 19:42:08 GMT
Yes, theatrelover123. The facility to change the type size is available only when using the 'Reply' facility. Anyone using 'Quick Reply' automatically gets the 10pt size, like this.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 19:32:43 GMT
WHY IS YOUR FONT SO MUCH BIGGER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE’S? An welcome accessibility feature to ensure the post is fully available to a diverse audience some of who may be visually challenged. Thanks Dr JB. You are right.
A few years ago I lost the sight in my left eye after a routine cataract operation went wrong and now that I have reached the advanced age of 82, the sight in my good eye is deteriorating. Even with my prescription spectacles, I find it something of a strain using my PC and I take advantage of the facility to increase the font size here on Theatre Board so that I can continue to enjoy my participation.
I suppose I could reduce the size of my text after I have written it – like this – but I choose to leave it large. Also, the choice is between 10pt and 12pt and if there was an 11pt type size then I would probably use it....but it's not there!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 18:24:05 GMT
Good question – I will ask them, or at least the ones who are still around as most of those who might have seen it are now attending opera in the big opera house in the sky!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 17:50:28 GMT
I am coming a little late to this party but I am fairly sure I saw a production of The Visit in London back in the 1960s or 1970s but I can find no reference to this on the internet and I no longer have access to the bulk of my collection of diaries.
Does anybody know anything about this production, like who was in it, where was it done, what version was used and who directed it? Is there anything about previous London productions in the current NT programme?
I don't recall there being anything special about the length of the performance so maybe the version used was somewhat trimmed. I do believe I enjoyed it and it seemed to be a vehicle for one of our distinguished older actresses, but which one I cannot remember.
My first thought is that this might have been the Peter Brook production with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (The Lunts) which is generally recorded as a Broadway production but afterwards played the (then) new Royalty Theatre (Kingsway) in June 1960. Actually the production had toured England in 1957/8 but had failed to find a London home then and that was why it went next to Broadway. Is this the production you saw ? I have some information I can send you on this production if you DM me an email address. If this wasn't the one you saw I can research further. Yes, Dr Jan Brock, that is absolutely correct – The Lunts in a production by Peter Brook. I remember it now! I wonder why the production does not get a mention online as playing in the UK as well as on Broadway in the Wiki article about the play? The Peter Brook production with the Lunts does however get mentioned in the Wiki article on the Peacock Theatre I will send you a DM. As to the dreadful Peacock Theatre, originally opened as the Royalty on the site of what seems to have been a glorious old theatre, the Stoll, that was demolished not long before I first came to London from Sydney. I hear from my opera-loving pals that in addition to occasional big musicals like Kismet, one of the last uses of the Stoll was for seasons by visiting opera companies including one that performed Porgy and Bess, and, it seems to me, that the destruction of this splendid theatre was an act of sheer vandalism although I can also imagine that to keep a theatre that large filled in what was a rather difficult location away from the rest of the main West End theatres would have caused economic problems and the building of a large commercial office block made more sense financially. I have attended a few different shows at the original Royalty ( Bubbling Brown Sugar and a nude revue) and later at the renamed Peacock (a few dance productions) and found the theatre itself to be particularly unattractive.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 15, 2020 14:26:54 GMT
I am coming a little late to this party but I am fairly sure I saw a production of The Visit in London back in the 1960s or 1970s but I can find no reference to this on the internet and I no longer have access to the bulk of my collection of diaries.
Does anybody know anything about this production, like who was in it, where was it done, what version was used and who directed it? Is there anything about previous London productions in the current NT programme?
I don't recall there being anything special about the length of the performance so maybe the version used was somewhat trimmed. I do believe I enjoyed it and it seemed to be a vehicle for one of our distinguished older actresses, but which one I cannot remember.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 10, 2020 19:27:26 GMT
I have an anecdote about Freni that might be of interest.
EMI was wondering whether or not to record La traviata with Freni when she appeared in the new production by Luchino Visconti of that opera at Covent Garden in April 1967, but as a result of her not entirely being on top of it vocally at that time EMI decided not to proceed.
But on the opening night, Maria Callas happened to be in London for her court case against Vergottis over the ownership of an oil tanker. Maria came to the Traviata performance as guest of the General Administrator (Sir David Webster) and was sitting in the front row of the Grand Tier and every time Freni sang a relatively high note, all heads in the Stalls turned to look and see whether Maria registered any reaction on her face.
One of my friends always sat in A 86 in the Amphitheatre, which was the first seat in the Lower Slips on the right hand side, so he was able to get a clear view of the entire Stalls from above. I'm not sure whether he could see Maria but he could certainly see all the people in the Stalls turning round to look at Maria at critical moments and he said it seemed that the Stalls spent more time turned around watching Callas than looking at Freni on the stage. I was sitting in the centre of the Front Amphitheatre so I could see only Freni on the stage and not the people in the Stalls or Callas in the Grand Tier!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 10, 2020 15:37:08 GMT
Mirella Freni, one of the great opera singers of recent times, has died aged 84. I believe the first time I saw her was as an exquisite Nanetta in Verdi's Falstaff opposite the equally superb Fenton of Luigi Alva at Covent Garden conducted by Giulini in the early 1960s. I was lucky to see her in various other lyric roles around that time and I was not entirely happy when she was persuaded by conductors like Muti and Karajan to take on heavier dramatic roles, but she made a success of her career and reached the highest levels of her profession.
A little anecdote that links with my first encounter with Freni as a recording artist came in my early days working for EMI. One of EMI's most successful complete opera recordings was Puccini's La Bohème with Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Björling conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Although recorded with a primitive kind of multi track technology, it was still in mono and when mono recordings became almost unsaleable in the USA, it became commercially necessary to rerecord this opera in stereo with the same artists. But before this could be achieved, Björling died and so did Beecham and Victoria decided she no longer felt able to sing the role of Mìmi. So the remake of the Beecham/Björling/de los Angeles Bohème ended up with Thomas Schippers, Nicolai Gedda and Mirella Freni! Fortunately, the result was also a superb recording and as all the performers were major stars at the Met in New York, it totally fulfilled its main requirement to be a hit in EMI's biggest opera market!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 6, 2020 14:44:58 GMT
But I dispute that he was the last of the Hollywood Golden Age greats while Olivia de Haviland is still alive, also at 103!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 4, 2020 11:46:44 GMT
But I do have my memories of seeing "Most Happy Fella" several times and they are still vivid. That's what I meant, tonyloco , that I guessed you had seen it at the Coliseum. It sounded amazing on TV, was it the same then? I did actually mention in my earlier post that I stood at the back of the Balcony at the Coliseum for the opening night of Most Happy Fella in April 1960 and was blown away by the powerful performances that reached to the very top of the auditorium without amplification, I assume. I went back and saw it several more times but its London run of 288 performances was hardly a success and I happen to know that the chief executives of Philips Records, which released the CBS Original Broadway Cast recording, were bored stiff on the opening night sitting in the Dress Circle! And it was also a long show, played in three acts according to Wiki, and in many ways quite operatic.
Libby Staiger's opening song as a tired waitress 'Ooh, my feet, my poor, poor feet' was a striking if unusual opening to a musical and she and Jack DeLon later brought the house down in the second act with 'Big D'. Jack DeLon also had the male quartet number 'Standing On The Corner' which was highly entertaining. But the rest of the cast was equally impressive, especially the two men with powerful deep voices: the American: Art Lund and the New Zealand Maori: Inia Te Wiata, the latter having a major international career as an operatic bass-baritone.
As I said before, it remains vividly in my mind and I rate it highly both as a show and as a production, despite its short run.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 3, 2020 21:27:01 GMT
No. I forgot about it, more fool me!
But I do have my memories of seeing "Most Happy Fella" several times and they are still vivid.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 21, 2020 11:00:46 GMT
I would like to point out that the 2nd February 1960 show includes the principals from the original London cast of The Most Happy Fella which opened at the Coliseum on 21 April 1960 – Art Lund, Libi Staiger, Helen Scott, Inia Te Wiata and Jack De Lon. I stood at the back of the Balcony for the first night and was bowled over by the power of all the performances which had no trouble reaching the very top of the auditorium without amplification. Presumably the whole cast was in London for rehearsals well before the opening night and in those days there were usually not a lot of 'previews' although I am not sure about that.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 21, 2020 10:43:03 GMT
^And even the less accurate stuff is still more informative than anything elsewhere . Flattery will get you everywhere....!!
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 20, 2020 11:52:07 GMT
For those who like accuracy, stick with Tonyloco on Theatre Board. Well, most of the time, anyway!
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 18, 2020 12:40:41 GMT
The Australian French-horn player Barry Tuckwell has died, aged 88. He had a very distinguished career in classical music as a soloist and orchestral player in the UK and internationally.
I also remember EMI Classics made a brief but unsuccessful attempt to establish Tuckwell as a celebrity soloist in the manner of the Irish flautist James Galway but this would require him doing crossover repertoire and that just didn't work. EMI made one album called A Sure Thing of Tuckwell playing Jerome Kern songs arranged by Richard Rodney Bennett which was excellent but it didn't capture the public imagination, possibly because Tuckwell lacked the personality to win public recognition the way Galway did outside the classical field.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 14, 2020 13:23:17 GMT
The original London production of this show at the Adelphi ran for just 24 performances from 20 September 1960 but I managed to see one of them and would have gone back for more had it not closed so quickly.
I remember enjoying it a great deal, with my favourite performer being Thelma Ruby although she is not mentioned in the bits about the production currently on the internet. I also vaguely remember Max Wall as being very good.
I have no idea why the production flopped. EMI thought it worthwhile to record a cast album on HMV but the public apparently wasn't interested.
I wish the new production lots of luck and hope the show finds favour this time around.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 12, 2020 15:09:52 GMT
Great idea. Two more. Just imagine if you were the boss of the Musicals unit of the biggest Studio the world has ever seen, and you had previously been a songwriter, you might conceive of a way of bringing some of those songs together. I bet you couldn't have imagined it turn out as well as Singing in the Rain. All but two songs were previously little known items from the back catalogue of ARTHUR FREED and Nacio Herb Brown. Production was delayed as Gene Kelly was busy at work on another 'portmanteau' musical, An American in Paris. Also spot on, Mr Snow. I had originally thought of An American in Paris but forgotten about Singin' in the Rain – two of the all-time great movie musicals.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 12, 2020 15:06:06 GMT
Love Me or Leave Me, with Doris Day as Ruth Etting. Among the more memorable songs in the film are: Love Me or Leave Me Shaking the Blues Away Ten Cents a Dance and too many others to list here. The full list can be seen at www.imdb.com/title/tt0048317/soundtrackSpot on, harrietcraig! One of the great movie musicals. I have just remembered Three Little Words (songs of Ruby and Kalmar) and The Best Things in Life are Free (De Sylva, Brown and Henderson) although I have no particular recollection of the latter film
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 12, 2020 14:41:09 GMT
May I selfishly take this thread off on a different direction and ask members to list their favourite old movies that brought together a lot of great old songs either by a single composer or by a particular performer.
Top of my list has to be The Jolson Story (and Jolson Sings Again) in which every song is a winner and sung by the inimitable Al Jolson. Also among my favourites are the following:
My Gal Sal (songs of Paul Dresser) When Irish Eyes are Smiling (songs of Ernest R Ball) Hello Frisco Hello (American vaudeville songs) Alexander's Ragtime Band (songs of Irving Berlin) There's No Business Like Show Business (songs of Irving Berlin) Yankee Doodle Dandy (songs of George M Cohan)
I know this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are certainly other similar films that will come to mind in due course. And some people might have a special preference for the composer biopics like Words and Music (Rodgers and Hart), Night and Day (Cole Porter), Till the Clouds Roll By (Jerome Kern), etc, although the great merit of these films is that they preserve performances of songs by those composers given by some of their leading interpreters rather than give accurate biographies of the composers.
Anyway, come on folks...let us see your lists!
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