Ethel Merman's voice ?

Who is this Ethel Merman alot on this board seem to be talking about? What shows is she currently in and isn't she the same Ethel who is related to Drew Barrymore?

Confused here.

Remember that the score for GYPSY was written specifically FOR Merman's voice. In fact, she was hired to do the show BEFORE composer Jules Styne or lyricist Stephen Sondheim were brought on board -- she hand-picked them and they tailor-made the score for her voice. Doesn't mean you have to prefer it to Peters or anyone else, but Merman's interpretation IS the definitive Mama Rose and everyone else is in her shadow.

Here's something I posted a while back in a thread about the difference between singers today, like Peters and almost all of her contemporaries and the realities of being a Broadway performer in Merman's time, before microphones, over-amplification and sophisticated sound systems became the norm when singers HAD to sing in a completely different style just in order to be heard:



"Peters, as much as I love her (and I've seen everything she's done on Broadway since SUNDAY IN THE PARK over 20 years ago), could never have sung Rose eight times a week without heavy amplification. As it was, she was struggling just to keep her voice together for much of this recent run WITH the aid of a microphone. The first time I saw her in previews, I was in the second row, close enough to hear that she was basically marking time and very lightly crooning her way through "Small World" and "You'll Never Get Away From Me" and some of the other songs, relying on the sound system to project her sound up to the balcony and saving her voice for "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and "Roses Turn." If she had to sing full-out without the mic for the entire performance, I doubt she'd have made it past intermission for even one show, let alone 8 shows a week.

Merman, for all of the criticism of her harsh and inelegant sound, very well may be the most important singer in the history of Broadway. Her voice was created for the theatre and has never made any sense in any other realm. There's a reason she never had a significant recording career (or tv or movie career) even in her heyday, despite being the queen of Broadway -- hers was not a voice that could ever be shown off to best effect in a recording studio or on a sound stage. Her voice came off as simply too big and exposed and shrill on record no matter the style of music. Warmth and subtlety sell records and Merman's voice lacked both those qualities in spades.

Merman never understood or gave a fig about "scaling down" or refashioning her performance so that it would be "more palatable" coming at you in stereophonic sound. She was a creature of the live musical theatre through-and-through and was never really at home anywhere else.

No, Merman's timbre, diction, pitch, vibrato, and ability to project were constructed, developed and groomed with really only one aim in mind -- to be able to belt songs over a large orchestra without amplification in large Broadway houses. It wasn't a pretty voice, but it was an invaluable voice to the Broadway musical of a couple of generations ago.

There's a reason some of the greatest composers in the history of the musical theatre -- Cole Porter (5 times!), Irving Berlin (twice), George Gershwin, Jules Styne et al -- entrusted her with some of their greatest work more than anyone else: they knew that she could "sell" a song all the way to the upper reaches of the balcony with every note, every word, and every syllable being clearly intelligible and on pitch over an orchestra, eight times a week. Given their status in the theatre, these composers had their pick of the finest singers of the day, singers with far more beautiful tone and far more elegant phrasing and yet they chose her. Why? This was, in part, for practical reasons -- being men of the theatre, they were willing to sacrifice a bit of tonal beauty in order to make sure their lyrics would be heard and understood and her pitch and diction were flawless. She apparently also was a fine comedienne for musical comedy -- not a great actress certainly, but believable and consistent and she knew how to land a laugh. Also her stamina and dedication we legendary. But mostly, so many people throughout the years have described the overwhelming excitement that would occur in a theatre when she would unleash that sound and it would go cascading throughout the house. It really must have been something to witness.

Now, even I thought of Ethel Merman as a sort of high camp joke when I was younger (and yes, I have a copy of the disco album) -- too broad, too brassy, too LOUD and seemingly over the top to ever be taken seriously. She typified so much of what "Old Broadway" singing was supposedly about and that voice simply didn't jibe with what I thought of as an aesthetically pleasing sound (it still doesn't) and it was difficult to understand some of the fuss so many people made over her.

Then, I'm not sure what happened. I think it was when I started going to the opera on a semi-regular basis several years ago. I found it a very different experience seeing the music in performance than listening to recordings or even watching "Live from the Met" on PBS. Witnessing singers pouring out glorious music live, over an enormous orchestra in a 4,000 seat house without amplification was truly a revelation. There were singers that I had admired for the beautiful sounds they made on CD, that I often found bland and boring in performance. And many of the singers whom I never cared for on record, would often completely blow me away live. While the sounds they made weren't always pretty, their commitment to character and the text and to using their voice as an instrument to convey emotion and character and temperament was extraordinary (I could tell several anecdotes here, but this post has gone on too long as it is).

There is an inexplicable visceral intensity that goes with being able to truly "feel" the sensation of a voice going through you in an audience unmiked, that simply cannot be conveyed via record . It is a very different experience from watching a show where everything you hear from the performers and orchestra is coming to you mixed through a sound system.

Can a "miked" performance be wonderful and thrilling and special? Of course it can. But I don't think you can fairly evaluate and compare (and denigrate) the performances of actor-singers who HAD/HAVE to scale their peformances "up" because they had to project constantly to the back row of a house without amplification, to performers who can basically whisper and sing sotto voce and still be clearly heard in a house as big as the Shubert. Let's imagine what Peters or the vast majority of her contemporaries of today's Broadway would HAVE to sound like belting in the Shubert or Imperial or Winter Garden eight times a week with no mikes as Merman had to throughout most of her career -- trust me, it would be a VERY different sound than you've become accustomed to hearing from them -- harder, harsher, and much less subtle and attractive.

Personally, I feel the need to not only cut the "old girl" a bit of slack, but also to feel quite a bit intrigued at what the heck she was doing eight shows week, lo those many years ago that made her the most revered and popular performer of her era. Merman never had the luxury of vocally pacing herself through a role by lightly crooning half of the numbers into a mike glued to her forehead.

What I hear on Merman's cast albums, brassy and over-the-top as it is, has a vitality and visceral intensity and a passion and an electricity to it that is completely missing from most performers today, who don't have to give their heart and soul and lungs and vocal chords to each and every note they sing. Belty? yes. Pretty? Absolutely Not. Forced-sounding? Maybe (though since she didn't miss a single performance for decades, obviously there wasn't any forcing or straining in her basic technique).

Seeing Merman live must have been an overwhelming experience. In the case of "Gypsy" for instance, to see a Rose who has no apparent need to pace herself vocally (that Peters and others HAD to), who utterly dominates every scene by her power and her very presence, who has a force of will and driving intensity that electrifies every moment?? ...... I'd have killed to be able to witness that.

---

Margo, you astound me. I find the above to be totally inspiring.

And, soulgrrl, I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

---

She is certainly the only hostess I know with the mostess.

I came along too late to see Merman in any of her stage roles, but I did see her twice in concert. Margo is absolutely correct: Merman was a performer one had to see live to fully appreciate. Her singing was simply electrifying. I am currently reading Brian Kellow’s Merman: A Life, and he gives the reader an excellent sense of what musical theatre was like in the first half of the twentieth century and just what Merman had that made her a star. In fact, I was there Monday night at the Gay & Lesbian Center when Mr Kellow showed several television clips from her career. In an early Milton Berle show from the late 1940’s, Merman is obviously not sure how to perform in front of the camera and it comes off like she was rushing through, trying to get off stage as soon as possible. But by the 1960’s, she had mastered the art of playing to the small screen and her rendition of ‘This Is All I Ask’ is quite tender and moving.

I think BrodyFosse was being facetious. In this day and age even the youngest Broadway neophyte knows enough how to Google.

Lastly, shame on the OP who threw his GYPSY recording into the trash. Had he kept it on the shelf, perhaps in a few years when he hits puberty and matures a little, he would've seen fit to go back and have another listen. At the very least, his local library or high school drama department would've surely accepted it as a donation.

---

In a few years when he hits puberty and matures a little, he would've seen fit to go back and have another listen.


- SO True!

Can i threadjack this for a quick moment, was watching cable last night and the movie Gypsy was on ( Russell, Wood ) first time i have ever seen the orignal film version (never seen it live).

Yes iam getting to a question, why was Memman never given the film role? Would she have not been the perfect person for it? Russell was awful that singing voice was, well not to my taste.

---

Thanks LJ.

I did not make it thru the whole film, maybe only a good 20 minutes or so in. Russell annoyed me!

---

I can't listen to Ethel Merman singing. It's like a needle in my ear.

---

"I can't listen to Ethel Merman singing. It's like a needle in my ear."

You're not listening to Merman singing. You are listening to a recording of a voice that could never possibly be accurately captured on any recording device. She was too big for the movies, to brash for radio and her recordings do nothing to capture the Merman experience.

Yes, that is what it was.

Merman was the Queen of Broadway from the moment she finished delivering her third song in the first performance of "Girl Crazy" in 1930.

She was an instant phenomenon. From that moment on, she was THE voice of Broadway, known all over the world.

Her shows sold out AND dozens of people gathered outside the theaters she was appearing in at odd times each night - the moments when she was known to be singing her numbers - because her voice could be heard outside the theater, especially on the hot spring and summer nights when the exit doors were left ajar in those pre-air conditioning ("air cooled" is not air conditioned) days.

Now back to the experience. When I was a very, very young boy, my parents, bless 'em, took me to see "Gypsy." My mother always told people I called Merman "the loud lady."

But this is what I remember of that night: the audience were all telling stories about Ethel Merman as if she was a god of some sort, in hushed toned before that amazing overture. Then, all of a sudden, there she was shouting "Sing out, Louise" in a voice that, even in her quietest moments could shake your chest. There were gasps, there were "It's her" comments, heads turned, and an electric charge went through the theater. Who engenders that these days?

There is a great moment in a live show when the audience is engrossed in the activity on stage. It's almost as if we're breathing as one. The only thing interrupting the performers is the occasional coughing.

I don't remember any coughing when Merman was, no, when WE were in a theater with her.

---

Well if you think my threads are pointless, you really don't have to post anything on them or read them. No one is forcing you

Updated On: 11/10/07 at 09:54 PM

soulgrrl, there's snarkiness in everything I say, don't ever take it personally!

---