IF YOU COULD PICK...

Okay, now which musical do you think is perfect. not one u have to like, just one that u think is flawless. perfect music, lyrics, book, actors...and lets try to think of some of the oldies. my picks would have to be south pacific, guys and dolls, the music man and my fair lady. i also happen to like them all. i also think its about time south pacific came back

I would have to go with She Loves Me...beautiful score, wonderful book and lyrics. Thats my pick for musical in "perfect form"
As far as sheer brilliance - nothing tops Sweeney Todd

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Porgy and Bess

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That's tough. I'd have to say either Music Man or West Side Story.

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I'd agree with Sweeny..

*waits for wicked teeny boppers*

But alas, anything by Sondheim.

Hm I never thought of little shop, but yeah, little shop is pretty amazing.

your signature is hilarious priest!

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42nd Street. Fun Score, Funny Book, Great Sets, INCREDIBLE dances. IMO, it's the quintessential broadway show

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What is sad is that IBF was being 100% serious.

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i agree with MY FAIR LADY. if i could go back in time and see one original classic production, that's the one i'd pick.

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To use Sondheim's definitions of "opera" and "musical" (which he had to come up with after being asked hundreds of times whether Sweeney and some of his other works were operas), if a show is playing in a Broadway house, it's a Broadway show; if the same show is playing in an opera house, it's an opera. It has to do not only with differences in staging, orchestration, etc, but more importantly, the expectations of the sudience you're playing for.

Porgy and Bess premiered at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre on Broadway and that was the only place Gershwin himself ever saw it performed. Its revivals in NYC have played at the Majestic, the defunct 44th Street Theatre, the defunct Ziegfeld Theatre, the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre, the Mark Hellinger (now the Times Square Church) and Radio City Music Hall. It never played an opera house in New York until the Metropolitan Opera staged it in the 1980s (1983, if I remember correctly), almost 50 years after Gershwin's death. While it can be described as an opera, it's longer legacy is in the world of the Broadway musical. Even in its writing, Gershwin acknowledged that, writing both Sportin Life and Maria as non-operatic characters. By any definition, in form, structure and orchestration, "It Ain't Necessarily So," "There's A Boat That's Leavin Soon For New York," "A Woman Is A Sometime Thing," "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin," "What You Want Wid Bess" and "Oh Lawd, I'm on My Way" to name a few, are musical theatre songs, not operatic arias.

The show is a hybrid, much like Candide, Showboat Most Happy Fella and Treemonisha -- all have roles that require singers with operatic training as well as roles best played by Broadway-trained singers (and all have been staged by the NY City Opera as well as on Broadway).

Sondheim has said frequently throughout his career that Porgy and Bess is his favorite "musical." Not opera (Sondheim hates opera). Musical. "There's Porgy and Bess and there's everything else," he says and I agree. I've seen it a half dozen times over the years (only once, incidentally, in an opera house) and listened to literally dozens of recordings of it and it is the single most perfect piece of music ever created by an American composer -- it's the great American opera AND the great American musical.

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Updated On: 12/13/04 at 05:06 PM

I think A Chorus Line is pretty flawless.

I also agree with "Sweeney Todd".

Another musical that I feel is underrated and works perfectly on stage is "Once On This Island".

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