BaL 15.10.16 - Cabaret

[Parry1912]

Wilkommen, Welcome, Bienvenue ... ?

Thanks, but I don't think I'll bother.

[french frank]

So many opera companies are doing musicals now, and doing them very well. WNO are currently touring Opera North's Kiss me Kate and it's very good indeed - no sense of them hurtling downmarket to boost audiences!

It's one I wouldn't choose to go to, but I have no objection to it being done. I could argue (and there is an argument) that every other darn show at the Bristol Hippodrome is a musical or a 'music show' (e.g. Abba Mania) so why must WNO bring us YET ANOTHER ONE and so on. But I wouldn't make those sort of hard and fast distinctions. For me it's more, well, one might make an 'exception' for XXXXXX. (I still wouldn't make a personal exception for Kiss Me Kate: I still have vague memory of the Howard Keel film, thank you very much ).

Categories and classifications are useful since they aid understanding but allow for infinite gradations: pigeonholes and compartmentalising limit, value subtracted. Cabaret should be listened to in the specific context of Building a Library, irrespective of whether it's a 'musical' or not. I am less certain on that basis. Unlike with classical works, people tend [NB tend] not to have multiple copies of musicals and will choose the film soundtrack or the West End cast or or or without considering the distinctions of performance.

[visualnickmos]

I still argue that Radio 2 is the place for musicals.Apparently they do too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/arti...t-musical-2016

Hear, hear!

[VodkaDilc]

I still argue that Radio 2 is the place for musicals.

Or what about an hour-long programme once a week on R3 devoted to this segment of the musical world? Perhaps it could be called "Stage and Screen".

[french frank]

I still argue that Radio 2 is the place for musicals.

Yes, I agree. But not the place for Building a Library. The argument is whether a Building a Library edition on a musical like Cabaret can be in any way musically illuminating. Will Richard Sisson be able to justify the work featuring on Building a Library? Rubbishing the concept without listening to the result is a bit prejudiced, isn't it? If the idea doesn't appeal, give it a miss. But so far I haven't read anything here which suggests anything other than that people don't find the idea appealing and won't listen. [NB That's me. I shan't listen. But I'm not arguing as a result that it shouldn't be on - I shall read and evaluate the comments of those who do listen].

1) On the RS link, don't be shocked by the bit saying Kit and the Widow will be appearing in a second series of ‘Kit & The Widow – Cocktails' on Radio 3: the partnership split up 4 years ago.

2) Will RS be a more critical commentator than Edward Seckerson, whose enthusiasm for musicals never seemed to me to be sufficiently critically informed? If you want to replace Sound of Cinema with Stage and Screen, fine. Having both, and why not a special come-back series of Kit and the Widow?, is winding back to the days of Roger Wright. Let's have Brian Kay's Light Programme as well. After all, there's an audience for all of them.

[Pianophile]

I'm a huge fan of 'Cabaret', having grown up with the film version and in more recent years enjoying two West End stage productions. I think, however, it's rather out of place on Building a Library. What's happening to R3?

[VodkaDilc]

I'm a huge fan of 'Cabaret', having grown up with the film version and in more recent years enjoying two West End stage productions. I think, however, it's rather out of place on Building a Library. What's happening to R3?

Exactly. It's not only on Building a Library that this sort of thing is happening. WNO has its annual visit to Oxford later in the month. It is giving four performances - one of a real opera and three of Kiss me Kate. I enjoyed the musical when I saw it at the Old Vic in the 1980s, but should an opera company be giving it such prominence in its schedule?

[french frank]

Exactly. It's not only on Building a Library that this sort of thing is happening. WNO has its annual visit to Oxford later in the month. It is giving four performances - one of a real opera and three of Kiss me Kate. I enjoyed the musical when I saw it at the Old Vic in the 1980s, but should an opera company be giving it such prominence in its schedule?

I assume because even in Oxford the audience for Kiss Me Kate will fill the theatre, whereas, as I said in my comments about WNO's Merchant of Venice in Bristol on Tuesday, the theatre was less than two thirds full. Touring is expensive.

But I've made my argument for this BaL: are we saying that Cabaret doesn't warrant a critical examination of any kind, full stop? Because it won't be anywhere else other than Radio 3.

[doversoul1]

But I've made my argument for this BaL: are we saying that Cabaret doesn't warrant a critical examination of any kind, full stop? Because it won't be anywhere else other than Radio 3.

I think the question is if there is any point in critically examining the music of a musical (the CD) independent of the film or the/a stage production. An opera CD is a whole work but a musical CD isn’t. So what is being examined?

[jean]

...WNO has its annual visit to Oxford later in the month. It is giving four performances - one of a real opera and three of Kiss me Kate...

You're lucky - here in Liverpool we didn't get any opera at all.

[BBMmk2]

Just when I can listen to CD Review and a BaL, they have CABERET!!!! Arggghhhh!!!!

[pastoralguy]

I'm really enjoying the BaL and am learning a lot about a score I THOUGHT I knew.

[DracoM]

It strikes me that a real fear is stalking the R3 corridors, fertilised and nurtured by RW's policies that are still playing out. Uncertainty about role, content, presentation, looking over the shoulder at R2. Desperate to avoid elitism, exclusivity, 'serious' music tags, so desperate as to do a kind of radion equivalent of 'Dads dancing'.

So sad: R3 does jazz pretty well - the utterly self-deprecating, no-nonsense and estimable Alyn Shipton et al, but why it feels the need to slip into 'Cabaret' territory totally eludes me? If the BBC think 'Cabaret' is that worth doing like this, then start a R2 equivalent series on compared versions of Broadway etc Musicals. Big audience, lots to say maybe?

Why R3?

I am shamed for and of them for this.

[MickyD]

I confess to being a fan of musicals, and I must say that I am finding this an excellently researched BAL.

[doversoul1]

We seems to be hearing about various productions of the musical but little about ‘critical examination’ of the performance of the music. It can be interesting in its own way (as Stage and Screen?) but not when I am expecting to hear a BaL.