Proms 34 & 35 - 11.08.17: John Wilson conducts Oklahoma!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

14:00 Friday 11 August 2017 (not being broadcast)
19:30 Friday 11 August 2017 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II: Oklahoma!
(semi-staged)

Aunt Eller - Belinda Lang
Curly - Nathaniel Hackmann
Laurey - Scarlett Strallen
Will Parker - Robert Fairchild
Jud Fry - David Seadon-Young
Ado Annie - Lizzy Connolly
Ali Hakim - Marcus Brigstocke

Bursting not just with tunes but emotions, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! brought new dramatic depth to the Broadway musical. John Wilson and his orchestra bring their signature energy and swagger to this much-loved classic.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Observing that this is a repeated Prom, I've been pondering the rational behind doing this.

Two points (the first being the more important)

1. I assume the reason is that the Prom(s) is/are likely to be so popular that one performance would not satisfy demand. This makes sense at first sight, but there are many other concerts during the season that are bigger sellouts, the Vienna Philharmonic proms being a prime example. As for the LNOTP ...

2. Then there is the question of numbering. When it happens, the identical concerts are not given the same number, even though only one of them is ever broadcast. Yet the hype always tells us that "every concert" is broadcast on Radio 3.

[Bryn]

Perhaps the matinee performance will include the Muppet version of the title song?

[pastoralguy]

A distinguished fiddle teacher of mine who had been taught by both Louis Persinger and Albert Sammons used to lead orchestras for amateur performances here in Edinburgh. I once him asked why he was prepared to do this when he could have taken much more lucrative work elsewhere. His reply was 'This is such wonderful music I couldn't possibly refuse'.

Since this was the music I'd been exposed to as a child his response was very heartening and I've never really trusted 'musicians' who turn their noses up at 'light' music.

[french frank]

Observing that this is a repeated Prom, I've been pondering the rational behind doing this.

Two points (the first being the more important)

1. Yes, it will be very popular and it's easier to book the JWO for afternoon and evening performances than the VPO. As it will probably be seen as a 'family' Prom, the afternoon one might suit younger children on holiday? Perhaps?

2.

Yet the hype always tells us that "every concert" is broadcast on Radio 3.

Same concert, different performances.


The rationale for including musicals - a relatively new idea - escapes me. The more 'non-classical' concerts that are included, the more the Proms will interest a wider range of concert-goers - each year they can look for the ones that appeal to them. This might counteract the accusations of the Proms as being 'elitist', though it does nothing to make the classical concerts less 'elitist'.

[Sic in respect of the term 'elitist' to indicate the way that it's used]

[MrGongGong]

I've never really trusted 'musicians' who turn their noses up at 'light' music.

Nor me
I love a bit of light music

[johnn10]

Nor me
I love a bit of light music

Same here and for a lot of others- who like me ,will be frustrated to find that at the same time as the Prom is on R3 tonight and BBC4 , over on Radio 2 (as they say) there is two hours of Gershwin with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

[cloughie]

A distinguished fiddle teacher of mine who had been taught by both Louis Persinger and Albert Sammons used to lead orchestras for amateur performances here in Edinburgh. I once him asked why he was prepared to do this when he could have taken much more lucrative work elsewhere. His reply was 'This is such wonderful music I couldn't possibly refuse'.

Since this was the music I'd been exposed to as a child his response was very heartening and I've never really trusted 'musicians' who turn their noses up at 'light' music.

Barbirolli owned up to liking a bit of schmaltz on interviewing Martin Milner for the leader job with the Halle. Milner's previous job was playing in a spa orchestra in Weston-super-Mare!

[bluestateprommer]

From hearing Act I, the very start was jarring, with JW over-driving the pace of the overture at the start, but then he relaxed the pace in due course. The main dramatic debit, IMHO, is Gertie Cummings, with the OTT braying laugh, but that may be inherent in the character. Belinda Lang's Aunt Eller approaches OTT at times as well, the more curious that she's evidently done the role on stage before. Maybe the performers feel that they need to "project" more in the vast space of the RAH.

The rationale for including musicals - a relatively new idea - escapes me.

Actually, here in the USA, musicals have made more of an inroad into the repertoire of opera houses in the past several years, e.g. Lyric Opera of Chicago staging Show Boat and My Fair Lady, and Glimmerglass staging musicals like Annie Get Your Gun, The Music Man, and Lost in the Stars, among others. A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd have made the rounds among quite a few US opera companies also. So this phenomenon at The Proms may be just riding this particular wave. ENO has done musicals also, so The Proms certainly aren't isolated in that way. Maybe it's all a way of trying to "refresh" the repertoire of opera houses, without having to pay for commissioning new operas.

PS: Overall evaluation; musically speaking, a solid rendition, with JW supporting the singers unobtrusively, notably in the passages that underscore the dialogue. I wouldn't call JW's conducting 'scintillating', but as kind of a back-handed compliment, he never gets in the way of the singers. This was actually my first time ever hearing the show 'as written', in that I've never seen Oklahoma! live. (Saw the movie as a kid years ago on TV, when I was way too young to have a clue.) I suppose that in a way, this is kind of like a "Drama on 3" presentation from The Proms, where the drama happens to be a musical. From hearing the summation by Vicky Stone of all the stage business, it did sound as though you really had to be there, and close enough to catch the stage business. I suspect that the Arena Prommers had the 'best seats in the house', after a fashion.

At the very end, Petroc worked in a nice quick tribute to the late great Barbara Cook.

[Pianorak]

Watched Oklahoma on television tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Hornspieler]

.........
The rationale for including musicals - a relatively new idea - escapes me. The more 'non-classical' concerts that are included, the more the Proms will interest a wider range of concert-goers - each year they can look for the ones that appeal to them. This might counteract the accusations of the Proms as being 'elitist', though it does nothing to make the classical concerts less 'elitist'.......

"Oklahoma" was a smash hit in New York but, for some reason, we in post-war Britain were not allowed to see it staged or hear the music in this country until the copyrite conditions had bee met.

But in 1946, my big sister (the actress in Stars in Battledress) was sent by ENSA in a party to entertain the troops in India.

When she returned some three months later, she brought with her a set of 10" records, on a Decca Red Label of the original cast of Oklahoma.

So we did have all of the songs and much of the action months before the show was staged in this country.

The original cast included Shirley Jones as the young heroine and Celeste Holm as "Aido Annie"


(I don't remember the names of all the other characters, but we still have that set of records somewhere - maybe my other sister or big brother may have them) - I'll ask them to do a search.

So of course, I approached last night's prom with a certain amount of caution, but, knowing what it could and would have sounded like, I was very disappointed.

All that it did for me was to re-enforce my view that opera and musicals belong in the theatre and not on the concert platform.

So old Hornspieler is whinging again and possibly upsetting quite a few forumites.

Sorry, but that was a travesty of a performance of probably the best musical ever for storyline, music and characterisation written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

HS

No complaints about the orchestra or John Wilson's conducting but, apart from the overture, what was there to like?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry, but that was a travesty of a performance of probably the best musical ever for storyline, music and characterisation written by Rodgers and Hart.

Hammerstein.

[BBMmk2]

Well, I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable performance of this musical. Not my usual fair, but I do rather like what John Wilson does. He seemed to have caught everything that rogers & Hammerstein wrote perfectly.

[french frank]

Actually, here in the USA, musicals have made more of an inroad into the repertoire of opera houses in the past several years, e.g. Lyric Opera of Chicago staging Show Boat and My Fair Lady, and Glimmerglass staging musicals like Annie Get Your Gun, The Music Man, and Lost in the Stars, among others. A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd have made the rounds among quite a few US opera companies also. So this phenomenon at The Proms may be just riding this particular wave.

The same applies here with WNO et al regularly putting on musicals. But the same question applies, though especially with the Proms, a 'branch line' from the main BBC, which has oodles of opportunities for broadcasting musicals which it thinks worth broadcasting. The only answer seems to be - money: they're popular with the public and so get full houses at the Proms (hence the two performances), boosting the revenues; but also would cost too much for a broadcast (only) production. This can't be a question of 'musical quality' unless you admit that the rest of the BBC's music outlets aren't broadcasting quality ().

What I'm looking for is the intellectual rationale, not surmises or 'because this is high quality music', 'because the performances are by very good musicians who make no distinction between "so-called classical" and "non-classical"'. But as long as people enjoy them they won't need explanations. I suspect that everything which retains public popularity but is no longer offered by the outlets concerned with the "here [sic] and now", or younger audiences (music festivals, Radio 1, Radio 2, commercial radio) eventually gets absorbed into the classical repertoire. Which then makes the term 'classical' meaningless.

Almost On Topic, I thought I was taken to Oklahoma at the Bristol Hippodrome when I was very small, but checking up on "You can't get a man with a gun" and "Anything you can do", I see that was Annie Get Your Gun.

Doubly Off Topic, then

[Quarky]

These semi-staged performances work for me far better than the full set. The performers appear far closer to home, and easy to get to grips with the individuals.

What else was there to like? The dancing was first class, in my view. Scarlet Strallen was also an excellent dancer. A star in the making, if she is not, already.