Aida the Musical — Page 2

thanks adam

maya days was the other aida i saw....

I think heather headley delivering one of the most incredible singing/acting combination performances

imaginable, given who many songs and scenes she was in and the vocal difficulty of the songs

im so grateful to have seen her do it, over and over again, and every performance i saw was absolutely extraordinary

I think her performance and this show had more to do with reawakened my passion for musical theatre than anything else id seen previously as an audit, and my obsession for musicals and yearly journey to broadway to see all the new obc's each year....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO1U8T0i3pk

one of the few good captures of the OBC doing

the absolutely terrific "A Step too Far"

(the orchestrations are wanting....)

dang jbradshaw

thats a lot of aidas you saw perform...

how many times did you see the show?

JBradshaw said: "No Schele was amazing when she went on.

Thursday as awful.

Heather was Heather can't beat her amazing performance.

Maya was great. Her voice was totally different than heathers which people didn't like.

Simone was awful. She could sing but she came across so cold and old

T''Rea was pretty but bad.

Braxton - yes key changes - was enjoyable

Saycon just ewww

merle was fierce

michelle Williams sang the hell out of it.

Paulette Ivory was perfection.

Loved Cox.

"

I remember Days' performance being wildly divisive. She was the replacement for Heather (right after 9/11 no less), and her performance was significantly different from Headley's. It was a much quieter, subtle performance than Headley gave. She sang the role differently (her voice was strong, but nowhere near the knock it out of the park level of actresses like Headley, Simone, or Merle Dandridge).

I enjoyed her a great deal, but I know lots of people didn't.

jbradshaw, seems like we both saw the show a lot.

I love Aida, while fully acknowledging it's flaws. The books is downright abysmal, with laughable dialogue and no character development. The score has to compensate for all of the shortcomings of the book, which it often does. I've always wanted to hear this score re-orchestrated with more traditional, less pop rock instrumentation; I know many probably like the wailing guitars and synthesizer, but I think I'd like it more without them.

The book was revised and improved for the tour and licensing, but it's still sort of the weakest side of the triangle. The score should have been sung through, I think.

Sorry to bump the thread, but I just finished listening to the score for the show in its entirety (more on that in a second) and want to share some thoughts.



When I initially found my way to the score for this show, I wasn't all that impressed by it, as I couldn't quite figure out the narrative through-line of the songs and was thrown off by what seemed to be the random shifting of focus from song to song. There were also moments that felt derivative of songs I'd heard from other shows.



However, after doing some research on both the musical and the opera that inspired it, I gave the score a second listen-through and have come away massively impressed.



There are still some parts of the score that feel derivative (Another Pyramid, for example, feels like it was melodically stolen from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), but that's really a minor issue when juxtaposed against songs like Every Story is a Love Story, Fortune Favors the Brave, A Step Too Far, I Know the Truth, and Not Me, all of which easily could and probably would have been the "featureed poece" in any other show, so the fact that they're all in the same score speaks volumes.



I love the score for The Lion King, but as good as that show's music is, Aida is several magnitudes better, and is one I would put up there with the likes of Les Mis, Phantom, West Side Story, and Beauty and the Beast, all of which make my Top 5 list of the best theatrical scores of all time (which is not something I would've thought would be the case given my initial tepid response to it).

Someone above said 'Simone can't sing?' Ummm, yeah, about that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCrojEBu7wI

Lisa Simone was likely the best sung Aida during the run. Yes, her acting was wooden, but damn if she couldn't add her own power to that score. She did the same thing as Mimi in Rent. Just. Killed. It.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy2o7pacVGI

Updated On: 8/18/16 at 06:18 PM

Wasn't Simone the original Aida in readings and workshops?

I'm fully in favor of a revival! What about an all-star cast for an ABC live musical?

I think Aida is a very underrated show. Yes, the book has some issues and they sometimes missed on casting later in the run (Idina Menzel did not work as Amneris at all) but the score is brilliant and the story is touching. It's insane that it didn't get a Best Musical nomination in 2000.

Now what I have always been curious about is, would Sherie Rene Scott be allowed to play Amneris in todays climate with casting and such.