BaL 15.10.16 - Cabaret

[underthecountertenor]

If you live as far from a major concert hall as I do, BAL IS a way of keeping just a very little in touch.

...which makes me embarrassed by how little I take advantage of the major concert halls within a 5 mile radius of my home. But aren't the Radio 3 concert broadcasts the best way of keeping in touch in this sense? I see BaL as performing a different function.

[Stanley Stewart]

Indeed, a well researched and presented BAL which encouraged me to get my DVD of I Am A Camera, 1955, off the shelves - the precursor to Cabaret, adapted from Isherwood's, Goodbye to Berlin by John Van Druten, - with Julie Harris deliciously reprising her Broadway role of Sally. A reminder that a young Dorothy Tutin also scored in this role which I saw at the New Theatre, 1953ish, (now the Noel Coward theatre). Memories, too, of attending the first night of Harold Prince's 1968 production at the Palace Theatre with Judi Dench bringing the house down and establishing her reputation after several years at the Old Vic and the RSC.

"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed."

As young actors, 'resting' between jobs in rep, we used to congregate in Joe Lyon's Corner houses over a 5d cup of tea, after visiting, say, an Otto Dix exhibition, discussing the implications of the Weimar Republic and how it also ushered in a permissive age when there was no such thing as closing hours, no censors, no morality laws. Anything goes..as the song says. All this in a pre-Wolfenden era which came to the fore in 1967 and changed the climate for a younger generation.

I have several Cabaret recordings in my collection and have now added the niggardly selection on yesterday's choice from the French recording. Otherwise, I'm quite convinced that musical theatre is now homogenised in the mainstream repertoire, despite the clucking of the usual luddites, and the third decade of this century. the centenary of the Broadway musical, with , say, Show Boat, will complement the pioneering work of John Wilson and find a niche for Guys & Dolls, Pal Joey, The Music Man, and, in particular, Stephen Sondheim's repertoire, for platform performances at The Proms, although revivals of Wild Violets and Bless the Bride will lie howling in the vaults for a bit longer!

[french frank]

Glad you enjoyed it, SS, appreciated your reminiscences as usual. And disagree with most of your last paragraph. The 'Luddites' enjoy one thing, you enjoy something else - and will be glad to see it wherever and whenever it appears. If I thought a BaL on Cabaret was opening the floodgates to Broadway musicals on Radio 3, at the Proms, in the repertoire of the opera companies, I'd change my mind and say: No Cabaret on Bal And Radio 3 for Luddites - which is not at all what I believe!

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks, ff. I don't think that Broadway musicals will open the 'floodgates' on R3, nor should it, but do welcome the gradual change in the scope of the Proms, eg, during the past few years, but accept that the staple ingredients must always favour the established Henry Wood traditions yet with licence for homogenised programming along the way.

I've just used a dreich morning to transfer an off-air recording of a 6 Sept 2004 Prom to DVD; BPO/Rattle - Debussy, La Mer and Messiaen's Eclairs sur l'Au-dela...; another reminder of Henry Wood's legacy with its illuminations of the beyond!

[Sir Velo]

Da Ponte (for example) still gets credited as the librettist in English language productions of Don Giovanni. Fred Ebb's text was still used - it was just translated (pretty faithfully, from what I could tell from the extracts played on BaL and on Sunday morning).

Which is all rather like saying that Proust or Tolstoy are best read in translation!

To go back to your reference to da Ponte, I can't imagine that anywhere other than in an English speaking country would a translation be preferred to the original, particularly when so much of the nuance is lost when not in the original.

[underthecountertenor]

Which is all rather like saying that Proust or Tolstoy are best read in translation!

To go back to your reference to da Ponte, I can't imagine that anywhere other than in an English speaking country would a translation be preferred to the original, particularly when so much of the nuance is lost when not in the original.

Well, some of us have no choice! I'm reading Proust in the latest Penguin translations at the moment, as it happens. It's still a struggle in places, but I know that my now rusty A-level French would not be up to the original. And my Russian extends no further than 'please, thank-you, hello, good-bye,' and some random extras such as 'pedestrian subway', which wouldn't get me far into War and Peace.

But I wasn't saying that. I was responding to your suggestion that Fred Ebb got the 'blow by' (an expression that was new to me).

I'm not sure I understand your second para. I'm not myself a fan of opera translated into English, and it's rare that I go to ENO to see standard non-English language rep (the present Don Giovanni being an exception, as the director and cast appeal to me). I agree that nuance is lost when not in the original, and that the music doesn't 'sing' so well when the libretto is sung in translation (and that usually means that the words are less clear anyway, with the pass now having been sold at ENO with the permanent use of surtitles). But (contrary to what you appear to be suggesting) it's not just in English speaking countries that opera is sung in translation and, therefore, in a sense 'preferred to the original' at certain opera houses and theatres.

And in this case what we had was an English speaking reviewer, for an English speaking audience, choosing a performance of a musical originally in English but performed in French. So I don't understand the relevance of your comment. My French, however limited (see above) is handy enough for me to be able, I think, to discern that what I heard of the Mendes Paris production caught the spirit of the piece and was a faithful representation of Ebb's original. It was a bold and controversial choice by Sisson, but he justified it to me at least, and (in the true spirit of BaL), the other options were fully laid out so that the listener could make an informed decision if so inclined.

[french frank]

the other options were fully laid out so that the listener could make an informed decision if so inclined.

And this is a large part of BaL, isn't it? You hear what you hear, and in the end can make your own decision. How many times have people said they disagreed with the final choice?

[underthecountertenor]

And this is a large part of BaL, isn't it? You hear what you hear, and in the end can make your own decision. How many times have people said they disagreed with the final choice?

[BBMmk2]

And this is a large part of BaL, isn't it? You hear what you hear, and in the end can make your own decision. How many times have people said they disagreed with the final choice?

Indeed, as did I with Vivaldi's Four Seasons!