NY Times Arts Beat today - Are Musicals losing their voices?

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:46pm

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/theater-talkback-are-musicals-losing-their-voices/?smid=tw-nytimestheater

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:50pm

He neglected to mention that Harris was in "Assassins", another Sondheim show (And was very good), Tick, Tick...Boom! and Cabaret. Of course that doesn't automatically mean he was good in the "Company" concert but I just noticed that they weren't included.

Updated On: 4/14/11 at 01:50 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:50pm

I do not share Mr. Isherwood's anxiety.

This is just another example of "the sky is falling" mentality that seems to have plagued Broadway aficionados since the musical was created.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:01pm

I think it's weird to make "Company" the example, when there are plenty of mediocre voices on the original album. That doesn't make that recording any less thrilling, though.

If anything, I think the trend is for voices to be too pretty. When I think of my collection of recordings, many of the albums from the 60s and 70s are populated with not so perfect voices, but voices that have character. I think of the original A Chorus Line album, full of imperfect voices (think about the group "we did what we had to DO" from "What I Did For Love") and then think of the revival recording, with voices that are much more technically proficient but almost antiseptic in their purity.

When he derides Hayes for technical proficiency, but notes there's a difference between a well-drilled student and a naturally gifted musical theater performer, I think his argument goes off the rails. Not that I'm saying Sean Hayes is the example to be held to here, because I agree in theory that there's a difference between learning and being a natural, but I don't think that a flawless voice is number one when it comes to naming what makes a musical theatre performer naturally gifted.
Updated On: 4/14/11 at 02:01 PM

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:08pm

How silly. Of all the musicals on Broadway right now, I can think of only one in which the lead is someone better known for being a star than having a good singing voice.

And absolutely, Phyllis. It's not like Charles Kimbrough, as marvelous as he is, was a golden-throated marvel.

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:10pm

If anything, I think the trend is for voices to be too pretty. "When I think of my collection of recordings, many of the albums for the 60s and 70s are populated with not so perfect voices, but voices that have character. I think of the original A Chorus Line album, full of imperfect voices (think about the group "we did what we had to DO" from "What I Did For Love") and then think of the revival recording, with voices that are much more technically proficient but almost antiseptic in its purity."

I agree but I don't know if the trend is more toward "pretty". But You have perfectly described the voices of the past and I prefer those voices to a lot of those we hear today.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:12pm

It's a "vacuous" article (to use the word he uses to describe the Company concert).

While I had made the same point about Neil Patrick Harris Harris (whose performance I liked) and compared him to Matt Cavenaugh's disappointing voice in the West Side revival, I didn't say it was a TREND.

And then to disprove his own point, he pointed to past-nonsingers like Lauren Bacall and Rex Harrison and Katharine Hepburn.

And then, to further disprove his point, he pointed to contemporary powerhouse singers like Patti, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O’Hara, Raul Esparza and Brian Stokes Mitchell and needlessly worried if they were the last generation.

Fail.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:16pm

And Phyllis's point is apt: The original Company had powerhouse singers for the powerhouse songs--Dean Jones/Larry Kurt, Elaine, Beth Howland, Pamela Myers--and singing actors for the rest of the roles.

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:21pm

His examples here are, to me at least, pretty ludicrous. To say that this generation of musical theatre performers aren't good singers and to use Radcliffe, Zeta-Jones, etc (stars chosen to headline revivals) as examples is not a very good argument at all. Those are really exceptions to the rule.

I definitely agree that the opposite trend is true. It's said on here a lot that even the musical theatre performers who were "singers" back in the day wouldn't have been able to hold up with the scores that are written today.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:30pm

Even a voice like Strich's seems to stretch the meaning of "good," at least in the way I think it's being defined by the Isherwood article.

He should pop in on Wicked if he's looking for "American Idol" style voices. People in that show never met a syllable they couldn't give fifteen different (and technically proficient!) notes to.

[Kad]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:32pm

As a theatre student, I see many musical theatre students focusing more on how to belt their faces off and correctly hitting notes than actually filling the song with emotion. It's the acting of songs that seems to be falling by the wayside in younger performers, not the singing.

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:35pm

^Exactly! Isherwood's missing the point here.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:42pm

Once again, Isherwood reveals his tiny brain.

in good musical theatre, actors-who-sing are always better than singers-who-act.

Singers-who-act are perfectly fine in dramatically inert or juvenile pieces like Phantom or Tale of Two Cities; but if you have a good book, you need actors who care more about the meaning of the moment than gorgeous tone production.

If the performer is as good a singer as actor, it's icing on the cake.

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:55pm

All things are beautiful
Mother
All trees, all towers
Beautiful

And all voices, too I'd say.

[Dawn Davenport]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 4:00pm

I must be too easy to please then I guess. because I think this article is pretty nasty and uncalled for.

I saw NPH in Company last week, and also saw Radcliffe in How to Succeed and Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises and I was thoroughly entertained by all three. I thought all 3 performances were really charming---they all have charisma of their own and the audiences responded to that.

Raul Esparza was an excellent Bobby, no question, and his singing is more powerful than Neil Patrick Harris'. But NPH brought a different spin to the part, he was a more wistful, vulnerable Bobby, and I loved that. I love his singing voice, just for the record.

I think the digs at Christina Hendricks and Stephen Colbert were wrong too---they both fit their roles perfectly (my opinion.) No "GREAT SINGING", but good voices, and funny, solid performances (everyone who was in the NYPhil Company should be getting tons of credit for putting on such a great show with such short and odd rehearsal times! I was in awe of them all, really.)

It definitely takes more to play a role well than having a pretty and/or powerful singing voice. Angela Lansbury would never be considered to have a "pretty" singing voice, but I saw her play Mrs. Lovett in the OBC of Sweeney Todd and I was blown away by her and finally understood why people like Ethel Merman and Carol Channing are stage legends; it takes more than just a "beautiful singing voice"!

[Kad]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 4:13pm

I also think the digs at the cast members of the Company concert are rather uncalled for. Colbert was fantastic and supremely entertaining, and Isherwood fails to mention that April's butterfly monologue got the same response as a musical number does thanks to Hendricks' perfect delivery. Although not comprised of top-notch singers, the concert was never not pleasant to listen to and, I think, extremely effective. NPH was a wonderful Bobby, and did bring an emotional climax to "Being Alive"- not through vocals, but through acting ability. I found NPH a far more human and sympathetic Bobby than Esparza.
Both "Sorry-Grateful" and "Barcelona" are not especially difficult songs, or songs in need of strong vocals. Colbert and Hendricks were perfectly fine.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 4:37pm

I think it's curious he mentions Zeta-Jones in Night Music as an example. I mean, she worked as a musical theatre actress in the West End long before her fame, and she certainly sang quite well in Chicago. Plus, it isn't as if Desiree is a vocally challenging role to begin with- as brilliant as Glynis Johns must have been, no one could say she had a phenomenal voice.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 4:43pm

I agree that the article is histrionic and not well informed. However, the same people on these boards that would say the article is over reaching are the same people coming back from shows and rallying against people who may have an off night, be singing off key or flat one night. Theatre has lost its intimacy-the idea that this performance is happening in a vacuum for only those who were there. Lots of people complain about singing on here.

If you listen to older recordings the vocals flaws are there-the emotion, the strain, the sharpness. Not so much anymore-everything is smoothed out. I believe many people, mainly young, are getting used to bland,over-processed flat singing voices that they truly believe are good.

Film musicals are populated with flat singers who are constructed and inflated to sound better and people think it sounds good. That is what worries me.

I go to musicals to hear singers sing and even to hear a hard working film actor emote while singing their best. What worries me is the other stuff.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 4:46pm

I also think what's missing in the conversation is how musicals have changed. The 1980s ushered in the mega-musicals which required stronger voices. Evita, Les Mis, Phantom, etc all required vocal powerhouses. So audiences lost the "character" voices of the book musicals.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 5:16pm

Too true - scores like those for Caroline or Change and Next To Normal show a lack of understanding of the human voice, asking performers to do far more than they're capable of doing eight times a week.

[sowren1020]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 7:09pm

I'm listening the 365 online radio station that plays Broadway songs and it seems so timely to listen to a fairly screechy version of CAROUSEL while reading your posting. There wasn't always beautiful voices in musicals, there were "stars" and "character voices" but in this new musical genre there is this new "autotune" filter that that can be applied to every CD and soundtrack, even to the performers on TV's GLEE. In this next generation of performers, they don't necessarily need to be on pitch, in key or have the capacity to belt. I don't mean to pick on GLEE; the individual singers are talented and have proven themselves in shows like, SOUTH PACIFIC and SPRING AWAKENING but you can hear this strange flattening out tone happen when "autotune" comes on. And, as this screechy version of CAROUSEL online won't necessary make it to today's CD or itunes market, we'll have concert versions of "autotuned" singing instead. And talented performers like Nancy Anderson, Andrea Burns, Bobby Steggert, Robert Petkoff and Peter Benson will be passed over for leads on Broadway, and "stars" will get cast. I have a lot more names of talented Broadway triple threats, if producers want suggestions.

[NeoNormal]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 8:15pm

As a small time director, I always look for someone who can act through the song. I learned this in directing class from my professor, that most characters in musicals have never taken a voice lesson. But then again, you don't want a ****ty singer.

Always go for actors who can sing as newintown said.

Just my two cents.

[dented146]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 9:41pm

Holy smoke! Four straight posts in which I agree. It's all of that. And I feel that acting through a musical number is what makes great performers into stars. It's about personality and it always has been.

No one is asking me but I feel that in many cases musicals aren't losing their voices, they are simply losing their music.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 12:45am

I agree that Isherwood's digs at the cast members of the Company concert were uncalled for. I thought Neil Patrick Harris, Colbert, and Hendricks all did a wonderful job, and I've always loved Neil Patrick Harris's voice. Colbert and Hendricks more than made up for lack of singing skill with acting ability and delivery, and neither of them was painful to listen to in the least.

I also saw Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises, Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed, and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Night Music. As much as I didn't care for CZJ's take on Desiree, it's not a role written for a singer...Glynis Johns was certainly not a great one. And both Radcliffe and Hayes were totally charming and connected well with the audience and I really enjoyed both of their performances.

I feel like this is just another rehash of the "musical theater is dying!" thing that comes around all the time. Plus Isherwood contradicts himself throughout this whole article, it's ridiculous.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 1:42am

Gwen Verdon.