Porgy and Bess
Watched Porgy and Bess today.
It's classed as an opera. I read that attempts by Trevor Nunn to turn it into a musical fell rather flat not too long ago.
My simple interpretation of the difference between an opera and a musical is thatsimp the former has rather jarring melodies and tones utilising the full range of the singer's pitch while the latter aims to have a fantastic, soothing and appropriate music to the scene. Generally musicals have songs which sound nice while operas are more technical in their singing approach and don't care about whether the songs have a great melody!
So while I don't really enjoy operas (well, yes I still intend to watch Carmen next year), given this is quite a special one - I have heard of and like the most famous song, 'Summertime' - and it's an all-black cast from South Africa who is performing (I later find out that the original production also intended, and did, use an all-black cast), I decided I would try and catch it.
It almost didn't work out but I got two friends to come and watch it with me in the end! It's a more pleasant-sounding (musicall) performance. Sort of blurs the line a bit between opera and musical, but it retains many operatic elements (and the difficulty to decipher what is actually being sung!)... good thing I read the synopsis beforehand on wikipedia.
Successful day, I say. One more performance to tick off my list..
It's classed as an opera. I read that attempts by Trevor Nunn to turn it into a musical fell rather flat not too long ago.
My simple interpretation of the difference between an opera and a musical is thatsimp the former has rather jarring melodies and tones utilising the full range of the singer's pitch while the latter aims to have a fantastic, soothing and appropriate music to the scene. Generally musicals have songs which sound nice while operas are more technical in their singing approach and don't care about whether the songs have a great melody!
So while I don't really enjoy operas (well, yes I still intend to watch Carmen next year), given this is quite a special one - I have heard of and like the most famous song, 'Summertime' - and it's an all-black cast from South Africa who is performing (I later find out that the original production also intended, and did, use an all-black cast), I decided I would try and catch it.
It almost didn't work out but I got two friends to come and watch it with me in the end! It's a more pleasant-sounding (musicall) performance. Sort of blurs the line a bit between opera and musical, but it retains many operatic elements (and the difficulty to decipher what is actually being sung!)... good thing I read the synopsis beforehand on wikipedia.
Successful day, I say. One more performance to tick off my list..
posted by cheez~ at
1:58 am
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