Favorite Overtures and Entr'Actes

I agree with you about the Cabaret entr'acte. I've always been a sucker for the Phantom entr'acte too. Ooh... LSOH has a good one too.

For overtures, I love 'em all...
Follies, Millie come to mind first.

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The Producers (OBC Recording)
Gypsy
Urinetown
The Full Monty

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Fav Overture: Phantom- It always gives me chills!

Fav Entr'acte: Cabaret- I love listening to it!

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Favorite Overture: POTO, i think its gorgeous
Favorite Entr'acte: Cabaret - its amazing!!

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Overtures

1. It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman
2. Baker Street
3. Hallelujah, Baby
4. Golden Rainbow
5. What Makes Sammy Run
6. Fade Out Fade In
7. Dear World
8. Bajour
9. Grind
10.Mame

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The Top 5 Overature Bests:

WICKED: Definately #1, This overature is powerful and spellbinding. Score is powerful, loud, and unfolds a magical and beautiful world of OZ. It is rythmicly different every few bars and makes just about the best opening to a musical I have ever Seen!!!!It is accompanyied by the movements of a fully operational mechanic dragon and a giant witches hat which dissapears in a puff of white light and smoke...

How To Succede in Buisness without Really Trying: Just an Awesome score, gives the listener that hoeky 1970's Office Settng, and creates a powerful and fortune savy feel to a busy opener and a grand fly in from the window washer crane.

Hairspray: Absolutely Dead on for the style of the musical. It is bright, loud and it gives you a really classic 60's feel while you are waiting.

West Side Story: Bernsteins Score detalies and foreshadows everthing to come in the Musical. It is amazingly and hauntingly written for this tragedy.

Updated On: 2/16/04 at 07:58 PM

I like Roxy's list the best. ("Golden Rainbow!" A lost guilty pleasure. I still remember Edie's numbers in particular.) But nobody writes (wrote) an overture like Jule Styne, nobody -- are there better ones than "Gypsy," "Funny Girl," and "Hallelujah, Baby!" The last is an underrated score, and I'm glad Roxy mentioned its overture, because it's one of the great, classy, emotion-tinged ones of a great era.

But those of you who mention "Phantom," "Hairspray," and "Wicked." Sorry, those shows don't have overtures. The brief stabs of music at the top may be dramatic and effective preludes, but no, not overtures. "Wicked" doesn't come close, and to me, it's too bad. It's a versatile score that could use one to sell it--to promise the richer fun ahead. I think its far too dark "Sweeney Todd" styled start is wrong, tonally. It's a musical comedy, and we should hear that it is. The little discordant chunk of "No One Mourns the Wicked" after a few brs of the "unlimited theme" does NOT an overture make. If anything, it sounds more like the music behind the main titles of a film, not a theatrical start. (And don't scream, Wicked folk; I'm a fan of the Schwartz score.)

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Updated On: 2/16/04 at 08:35 PM

Gypsy and Nine for favorite overtures.

Apart from the usual suspects (Candide, Gypsy, Funny Girl, On the Twentieth Century), I think Phil Lang wrote most of my favorite overtures.

Consider:

Li'l Abner
Jamaica
My Fair Lady
Take Me Along
Carnival!
Camelot
Subways are for Sleeping
Jennie
I Had a Ball
The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd
Mame
How Now, Dow Jones (Yes, it has an overture, and it's great)
Applause
Sugar
Mack & Mabel

I'm also partial to the Overtures for Wildcat (Robert Ginzler/Sid Ramin), Little Me (Ralph Burns), Promises, Promises (Jonathan Tunick) and No No Nanette (Ralpb Burns).

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Magruder, bravo. Another great list. P. Lang was the best. Sugar -- not a great Styne score -- has a damned catchy overture. And Applause, not one of the better Strouse scores -- has an infectious one.

Those of you who keep citing "Mama Mia" and "Aida," trust us, you haven't heard overtures. Those are preludes. Sample from Roxy's or Magruder's list. Overtures don't really exist anymore, and it's too bad. Even Sondheim wrote at least one legit one -- for "Merrily We Roll Along."

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Some other great overtures:

GOLDILOCKS
ANKLES AWEIGH (segues into 'Italy', the most enjoyably awful opening number ever)
REDHEAD
SOUTH PACIFIC

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Overtures: Bells Are Ringing, Urinetown, Chicago
Entr'Actes: Chicago, Cabaret

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