I think of myself as someone who loves musicals. Life lived through song and dance makes sense to me and I occasionally actually burst into song to express exuberant emotions.
But recently someone gave me a ticket to a local production of Sweeney Todd, which I was only slightly familiar with. I don’t usually get to go to theaters but to my eye and ear the production seemed professional and well done. It was the theater of a large public ivy university which has a full season of shows every year. The ticket I was given would’ve cost around $50 and the theater was full.
I was so straining to catch the words of the songs. The singers were great, their voices were beautiful, but I was probably missing about 1/3 of the content. For the chorus I was pretty much missing everything except the oft repeated “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet. Street.”
Although I could tell what was going on and the emotion is conveyed by the music it was frustrating because when I could catch the words I could tell the songs were clever and the language wasn’t just filler.
Anyway, it was never going to be my favorite story, but the extra work of trying and failing to understand really cut into my enjoyment. I realized that most of my experience of musicals is listening to my parents’ records as a kid where all the words were written on the album cover or watching movies where I can put on the subtitles.
If I were ever to shell out $$ to go see another musical in the theater I will definitely learn the songs before going, is that what theater going people usually do?
No idea what is “the done thing,” but, yes, I prefer to know the work ahead of time, at least to some degree of familiarity. That’s how I see operas, too.
And symphonic/orchestral/chamber music too, come to think of it. If I were to plan to attend a performance of a work I don’t know, I’d listen to a recording of it, first, to have a decent “internal model” of the piece.
(This can have a minor drawback: I almost always develop a preference for the first version of nearly anything I hear. I sort of “imprint” on it like a baby duck.)
I’m not really into musicals and had a similar experience happen about a decade ago.
My wife is into musicals so I got us Phantom of the Opera tickets. I had no idea what the story was, never listened to any of the music, and all I knew going in was it was some kind of beauty and the beast type story. I was looking forward to experience what so many considered a classic.
I strained so hard to understand what they were saying and about 1/3 of the way through just gave up. Totally a waste for me.
I think the performers had done the show so many times that they were more focused on their singing and acting than actually being intelligible. And the audience was probably so familiar with the show and heard it numerous times all being previous fans that it didn’t matter to them or they heard the words without really ‘hearing’ them.
For myself they might as well have been singing in Latin.
This is especially true of operas (including operettas) . . . and especially if performed in a language I don’t speak. Before attending such a performance I always familiarize myself with the plot, characters, and if available, some of the music, even to the point of watching a video of another performance. It definitely adds to my enjoyment of the performance.
But sometimes this can backfire. I have had recordings of some obscure operettas in uncommon foreign languages, and though I had enjoyed them for decades, I had no idea what the singing was about. Then I saw a performance in English. I was disappointed when confronted with the actual meaning of the music. It had more meaning to me as an abstraction . . . just a lot of beautiful singing, not connected to a silly plot.
I saw The Book of Mormon recently, and didn’t know very much about it, and came out loving it, and watching and rewatching productions on YouTube. I don’t think not knowing it hurt my appreciation at all.
I don’t and I’m glad I don’t: When I saw The Drowsy Chaperone, I was only vaguely aware of the show-within-a-show conceit it had, so I was pleasantly surprised with how far they took it.
I think this even applies to Gilbert and Sullivan shows, where the plots are largely unspoilable due to their predictability but learning too much in advance would ruin the jokes. This applies similarly to plotless shows, so I’m glad I came into The Gondoliers and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) fresh.
Because going to NY to see musicals is out of my price range, I sometimes have heard the cast recording way before the touring show makes it to my town. Sometimes I go without having heard the show first. It depends.
That said, if the audience can’t understand the lyrics without already knowing the show, they’re doing it wrong. It’s not opera, where you need supra/subtitles even if they are singing in a language you know. You should be able to understand Sweeney Todd cold.
Some of the fast-paced chorus work can be tricky. The “Rats in the streets and lunatics howling at the moon” business is hard to make out the first time you hear it.
Gilbert and Sullivan are also tricky, because lots of times you have the cast broken up into two or even three groups, each singing slightly different lyrics. Personally, I find that absolutely impossible to make out: at best, I single out one line of lyrics, and at worst, it’s a total jumble.
I am certain that having listened to the soundtrack to the point of ‘learning’ it, and having read the book on which is is based will only multiply my enjoyment of a live performance.
mmm
Sondheim, G&S and most Weber, I’d prefer to be fairly familiar with before I see it for the first time. They all tend to have at least one song where everything is singing at once, which can be glorious, but difficult to hear. And if Tim Rice wrote the lyrics, there’s bound to be something shocking and clever in there that I miss on first hearing.
But, intelligibility issues aside, I find that I just prefer a show itself if I know it already. Maybe that’s how conservatives are born, I don’t know. But I like my old favorites the best, and new shows take a couple of hearings for me to really enjoy them. So if I want to get my money’s worth at the theater, I’ll go do some research and listen to at least a few of the songs first. I had a music theory teacher once who told us that was why Overtures and Entr’actes were invented, to teach the audience’s ear the main motifs, so that when they came up again in the show, they were familiar and more readily accepted.
On the advice of a friend, I familiarized myself with *Cats *before seeing it the first time, and I’m glad I did. I knew what they were going to be singing so I could enjoy how they were singing rather than get lost trying to figure out the lyrics.
When I first saw 1776, circa 1972, I happened to have ridden downtown on a bus near someone who had seen it and was describing it to her seatmate. So I knew what the final scene would be - it wasn’t a huge spoiler, but enough that I was denied seeing it for myself as a surprise. Altho every time I’ve seen it (either on stage or the movie version) it still gives me chills…
I don’t usually familiarize myself beforehand (though I do sometimes play the album in the background). I don’t usually have a problem understanding what’s being sung, but I grew up with musicals and long ago learned how to concentrate on the lyrics.
I don’t, but if people are already familiar with the songs, translations or adaptations can work very well or very badly.
We Will Rock You played for a while in Spain. Now, we know what it’s about, right? It’s kind of like Rocky Horror, you shouldn’t go if you want to spend a serious evening. The story is basically an excuse to string up the songs. Someone thought it would be a good idea to take a lot of songs that the fans already knew by heart in English (who cares if the lyrics they knew weren’t the official ones, or even not recognizable as English). It didn’t work out very well.
Mamma Mia was also done in Spanish but ah, in that case every single song already was translated to Spanish (or directly written in Spanish) by ABBA themselves, so those were the versions a Spanish-speaking public were most likely to know.
While in Norway, the members of theatrical team El Tricicle went to see a show that they loved despite not really understanding a word (their Norwegian is sorely lacking). They obtained permission to use the same idea in Spain, where they called it “Forever young” (sic). Most songs were in their original languages, with people humming or singing along but not loudly. “I will survive” was sung in English and then switched to Spanish, but to an already existing cover by Celia Cruz which was included in her last record (made when she already knew she was dying): I think my mother and two others were the only ones who didn’t stand up to belt it out as loudly as we could.
“Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,’ said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. ‘There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh, I am dyin’, oh, oh, oh, that’s what I’m doin’”, and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!”, although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, reely."
-- (Terry Pratchett, **Maskerade**)
I make it a point to read up on a production before seeing it.
I have a great friend who used to work locally behind the scenes as a marketing rep for touring productions of Broadway shows. She’s the one who would take me to see them, and I always deferred to her judgment on familiarizing myself with the shows.
I didn’t need anything for “Movin’ Out.” I’m a huge Billy Joel fan.
I’d seen the movie version of “Cabaret,” or at least parts of it, before. No real knowledge of what it was about, and the “If You Could See Her” song kinda floored me. I’m glad I didn’t know.
She gave me a little info on “The Producers.” But I didn’t need it.
I’m in two minds. Sometimes I like the experience to be fresh, sometimes I like to prep in advance with a cast recording. When we first saw Spring Awakening, for instance, I’d listened to the recording several times, and, frankly, found it a bit wanting, couldn’t really connect with the songs, hadn’t become familiar with the characters. That’s just what kind of show it is. On seeing it live, the songs clicked into place – they’re internal monologue, they’re emotional snapshots, they don’t drive the plot – and I loved the show. The cast album makes a lot more sense to me now, and helps me recapture some of the sensation of seeing it live.
Sondheim, though, he’s aaaall about the wordplay. Even if you think you’re getting it all by ear, you probably missed half a dozen jokes/plays on words/internal rhymes/neat imageries.
My wife and I are subscribers to the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, which presents Broadway-caliber productions (indeed, several shows have premiered at the Paper Mill prior to starting their run on Broadway). So we get to see plays at least 5 times per year, the majority of which are musicals. I never “prep” for the shows by trying to get to know the music beforehand, but I do enjoy the show more when the music is familiar. Occasionally, we see a show where I enjoy the music enough to follow up with it afterward by buying the CD. Just a couple of weeks ago, we got to see Pump Boys and Dinettes, and the cast album for the original show is now on my Amazon Shopping List.
