The staging for this, and also previously My Fair Lady, was quite effective in my view. Even the usually rather annoying screens along the back of the stage were used quite well to represent the town's roofscape, with the eponymous fiddler starting off by playing from next to the organ console, therefore indeed more-or-less on the roof.
-
-
Late catch-up on Prom 11, well after everyone else here, it seems. While listening to this Prom on iPlayer, the old NYC advertisement suddenly popped into my head: "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye." The reason, of course, was the casting of the very Welsh, very un-Jewish Bryn Terfel as Tevye. Yet seeing the pictures of him in makeup and costume as Tevye, he did look the part. Over iPlayer, no sound balance problems that I've read about in all the reviews and comments from those here on the Forum who were actually at the RAH. Some moments might have come off on iPlayer as potentially "overprojecting" the dialogue, I'll admit. But it was good that he generally avoided obvious "shtick". Strong acting and singing cast all around, although Rebecca Wheatley as Yente was the closest to going OTT, IMHO. While from seeing clips of the 2010 Sondheim Prom, I don't rate David Charles Abell as having all that sophisticated a conducting technique (he seems to use his whole arm to express his baton movements rather than just the wrist and avoiding unnecessary motion), he got very fine results from the BBC Concert Orchestra, just by hearing the band play.
BTW, if anyone wants to read, some past material from NPR features on the musical:
Comment
Comment