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- Volume 1, Issue 3, 2007
Studies in Musical Theatre - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2007
Volume 1, Issue 3, 2007
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Songs about entertainment: self-praise and self-mockery in the American musical
More LessSongs about entertainment, such as There's No Business Like Show Business (Annie Get Your Gun, 1946), abound in the American musical from at least the late 1890s, and they reveal important aspects of the genre. Jane Feuer notes the self-praise in such songs, as well as the nostalgia for past entertainment traditions. In addition, however, musicals feature a strong, heretofore neglected propensity towards satire of a wide range of artistic culture. Specifically, the American musical is frequently self-mocking. Parody, burlesque, and irony are long-standing conventions of the genre; and they imply a sophisticated reception process that encourages a sense of community. This paper illustrates these tendencies by analyzing songs about entertainment dating from both the mid-century period so often dubbed the Golden Age of the American Musical and also, crucially, from the formative decades of the early twentieth century that are frequently neglected in critical analyses of the genre.
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Legends of the Follies: fact and fiction in the performance history of three songs from the Ziegfeld Follies
By Ann OmmenFlorenz Ziegfeld, Jr. is a legend, both in the history of Broadway and in American popular culture. It is therefore hardly surprising that his most famous Broadway productions, the Ziegfeld Follies, are often characterized according to legendary stories about their creator, their star performers, and their appeal with American audiences. Historical evidence, however, often differs significantly from what these legendary stories suggest. This study examines the performance history of three songs Shine On, Harvest Moon, My Man, and A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody from their original performances in the Ziegfeld Follies to the renditions seen in MGM's The Great Ziegfeld of 1936. It reveals that the legends of how these songs were first performed and received in the Ziegfeld Follies are largely untrue, exaggerations based on performances other than the originals.
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Remembering and re-membering: Sondheim, the waltz, and A Little Night Music
By Steve SwayneIn its early years, the waltz scandalized people because of the intimacy required to execute the dance. This, in turn, has given the waltz its stance among dances as the emblem of togetherness, romance, longing and nostalgia. Sondheim upsets this middle-European view of the waltz, first, by relying mostly on French variants of the dance, and second, by using the waltz as a sign of decoupling and separation. Nowhere is this clearer than in his 1973 musical A Little Night Music. Sondheim's reinterpretation of the waltz is obscured when commentators equate the dance with its metrical components, and Sondheim spoke against such reductive strategies. This article similarly argues for an abandonment of the term waltz musical not only in recognition of the presence of other dance topoi skilfully deployed by Sondheim but also in appreciation for how the waltz itself has been re-scandalized in Sondheim's works.
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Billy Elliot The Musical: visual representations of working-class masculinity and the all-singing, all-dancing bo[d]y
More LessAccording to Cynthia Weber, [d]ance is commonly thought of as liberating, transformative, empowering, transgressive, and even as dangerous. Yet ballet as a masculine activity still remains a suspect phenomenon. This paper will challenge this claim in relation to Billy Elliot The Musical and its critical reception. The transformation of the visual representation of the human body on stage (from an ephemeral existence to a timeless work of art) will be discussed and analysed vis-a-vis the text and sub-texts of Stephen Daldry's direction and Peter Darling's choreography. The dynamics of working-class masculinity will be contextualised within the framework of the family, the older female, the community, the self and the act of dancing itself.
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Beyond Jumping the Shark: the new television musical
More LessThis article explores the recent musical episodes of television series, among them ones from Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and particularly Scrubs, in order to develop a greater understanding of the uniquely modern television musical episode. By examining the ways in which music, heightened reality and camp aesthetics are used in the musical episodes of the three series, the article explores why these three recent episodes have succeeded in a landscape dominated by both critically and popularly panned musical television episodes and failed musical series like Cop Rock and Viva Laughlin.
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Book Reviews
Synopsis of Vocal Musick by A.B. Philo-Mus, Music Theory in Britain, 15001700: Critical Editions, edited and with an introduction by Rebecca Herissone, (2006) Aldershot: Ashgate, 223 pp., ISBN-13 978-0-7546-3505-5, ISBN-10 0-7546-3505-8 (hbk), 55.00.
Mallarm and Wagner: Music and Poetic Language, Heath Lees, (2007) Aldershot: Ashgate, 286 pp., ISBN-13 978-0-754-65809-2, ISBN-10 075-4-65809-0, (hbk), 55.00
Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical, bruce d. mcclung, (2007) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, xxi 274 pp., ISBN-13 978-0-19-512012-7 (hbk), 19.99
The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, Raymond Knapp, (2005) Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 362 pp., ISBN-10 0-691-11864-7 (hbk), ISBN-13 978-0-691-12613-5 (pbk), 12.95
The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity, Raymond Knapp, (2006) Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 470 pp., ISBN-13 978-0-691-12524-4, ISBN-10 0-691-12524-4 (hbk), 23.95
The Musical World of Boublil and Schnberg, Margaret Vermette,(2006) New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, xiv 345 pp., ISBN 978-1-55783-715-8 (pbk), US$19.95
The Megamusical, Profiles in Popular Music, Jessica Sternfeld, (2006) Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 441pp., ISBN-13 978-0-253-34793-0, ISBN-10 0-253-34793-9 (hbk), 17.99
The Music of Mauricio Kagel, Bjrn Heile, (2006) Aldershot: Ashgate, 209 pp., ISBN-13 978-0-7546-3523-9, ISBN-10 0-7546-3523-6 (hbk), 50.00
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