Marie Christine- Page 2

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 6/13/09 at 2:20am

When have the Tonys been about the best performance. It's all about buzz...often the 2 line up. But I mean Heather's work while great doesn't match Audra's OR Marin's that year (Kiss Me Kate). Heather was good and had buzz so she one.

It's funny people call Marie Christine an opera. My question is what makes it an opera?? It's not sung through by any means. There's some legit singing but a helluva lot of belting from SEVERAL people..including Audra actually. So what was? It was a complicated score that had great breadth? It was epic? To me that doesn't mean opera. Ya know I something Sondheim AND LaChiusa said makes sense to me. I think opera is about expectation (which is why it mightn't have done so well). There are operas with lines and there are sung through musicals. I think people weren't ready for this. It's clear by what won best school that year. I mean Aida is nice but an Elton John song has about 3 chords in it. That's what people are used to hearing these days. People aren't used to really listening anymore. Nothing's acoustic anymore. So something complicated that requires you to actually listen isn't going to be a hit right off. I'll admit Lachiusa's music is difficult and requires involvment.

I must say that this was 10 years ago. I think it's changing...again. It's all in cycles. Things like the Adding Machine and, Passing Strange and In the Heights that challenge audiences to REALLY listen are making there way. We always need a couple of these shows in a season. I'd shoot myself if ALL that was on Broadway was "bubble gum and cotton candy". No I'd just go see plays and go Off-Broadway.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 6/13/09 at 8:20am

This show massively deserves more appreciation than it got first time round.

I do feel though, that when the material is difficult- and it couldn't get much tougher than this- the creative team needs to offer ways in, and I think the staging of this piece could have been more accessible without destroying the mood.

Just like people used to criticize Sondheim, I think people will eventually (I hope) get MJLC's music. MC and TWP are two of the greatest scores of the last 20 years.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 6/13/09 at 3:22pm

Bettyboy: "Anthony Crivello came off much better on stage than on the recording and Mary Testa comes across much better on the recording than she did in the theatre where her performance became caricature by the tragic ending... which was conveyed solely by her REACTION to the reveal of the two bodies, which remain offstage ala Greek Theatre (although MC's brother was killed onstage (?))."

She doesn't have that much material (2 or 3 songs besides the Opening/Closing), but what she is has is most of the more "accessible" stuff like a brothel number ("Cincinatti") and a chilling plea to the increasingly crazed MC ("Prison In A Prison").

Its one of the most beautifully produced (and longest, about 79:45 which is the maximum allowed on CD) cast albums out there, with an excellent synopsis and complete lyrics/dialogue in the booklet as well.

It really should have been a 2 cd set with the expurgiated material, but we should be glad with what we have.

I look forward to opera companies continuing to produce it in the future and maybe a different directorial concept could work for a broader audience.

P
Updated On: 6/13/09 at 03:22 PM

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 6/13/09 at 4:18pm

It's been 10 years. I'm hopin' that regional productions of this work start getting picked up.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 8/14/09 at 2:00pm

Wikipedia lists a song called The Map of Your Heart which I know is sung by the brothers. Was that song cut during previews?

[myshikobit]

Posted: 8/14/09 at 2:13pm

I love this show sooooo much. The first time I couldn't quite get my head around it. I didn't have much room on my Ipod so I cut it after my first listen. Then a few months later I had the opening stuck in my head, and I wanted to hear it again. I put it back on and it hasn't come off since. I love the score sooooooo much. I really want to play Dante one day

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/14/09 at 6:42pm

I have the CD & have never even listened to it.

We saw the show but it was slow moving. We saw it mainly due to Audra being in it.

Updated On: 8/14/09 at 06:42 PM

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 8/18/09 at 2:09pm

Sounds exactly like what happened to me when I saw 110 in the Shade.

Posted: 9/7/09 at 8:13pm

"The show flopped on Broadway. It ran 42 performances, mostly because of its impossible-to-penetrate-on-a-first-listen score, relentlessly dark subject matter, and dramatic inertness. "

This is what I don't get. Besides the fact it had a star performance, and a gorgeous staging by Daniele, I think the score (along with Wild Party) is LaChiusa's most instantly accessible. The second half of Act I in particular is strikingly melodic, instantly memorable, and dramatically strong. It's a spectacular piece of music (Act II is musically much harder to penetrate at first though I suppose this makes sense with the subject matter). I'm just shocked that some LaChiusa fans even find it his worse score.

"I still wish "Old Dante", The Wedding and the more surrealistic aspects of the show had been kept as it was almost too abstract by the time it opened. "

Can you say more about this? I didn't knwo about all the changes made. There's very little about MC out there even when ti comes to LaChiusa shows--absolutely no video on youtube (I didn't knwo Audra performed on Rosie O from it) no pics I can find except in the CD book, etc. I do think the reviews were vastly unfair--Brantley makes no secret for hating LaChiusa's work and I did find int he Times a nice followup review by someone else of the CD that seemed to indirectly be chastising Brantley.

But what always confuses me about people and critics when they dislike a LaChiusa show is how personallyt hey seem to take it. Fine, it doesn't speak to you but people almost act liek LaChiusa is being arrogant and take it personally.
Updated On: 9/7/09 at 08:13 PM

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/7/09 at 8:43pm

I thought it was absolutely awful. People around me either walked out, or fell asleep. They were the lucky ones!

[blaxx]

Posted: 9/7/09 at 8:46pm

I remember watching it.

To be honest, who opens Marie Christine just before Christmas? It seemed like the worst time of the year to watch something like this. And it was also the end of the millennium Christmas, and I thought the timing for this show was bizarre.

I liked it, but after watching Kiss Me Kate the night before, I had a hard time sitting through it, but was amazed by Audra.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 3:49pm

"To be honest, who opens Marie Christine just before Christmas? It seemed like the worst time of the year to watch something like this. And it was also the end of the millennium Christmas, and I thought the timing for this show was bizarre."

RIGHT ON, as usual, blaxx my love.

It was the last new musical to open on Broadway in the twentieth century, no? I think it may end up being the SWEENEY TODD of LaChiusa's pieces, as none before or since have had quite the epic grand sweep (GIANT I'm unfamiliar with) and pure operetic nature of this piece. And some of those melodies are like BUTTAH.

The score is a marvel - you may hate it, but you gotta admit it's at least DIFFERENT from anything heard on Broadway at that time.

Those orchestrations are truly Tunick's masterwork (and that's saying A LOT) - and I made sure to tell him so when I met him, and he largely agreed and was visibly touched that his masterful orchestrations had such an effect on me and expressed a particular affection for the piece, placing it in "the league of Sondheim" for whatever that's worth. I can still see the drummer on the perch doing the solo at the start of Act 2... "Miracles and Mysteries", "Tell Me", "No Turning Back" and "Marie Christine" as well as the Opening/Closing have some of the most interesting and intricate instrumentations that I've ever heard.

There is A LOT more I could say... but haven't I said enough?

P

[dramarama2]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 5:40pm

Ok. I love this show. I've listened through the recording countless times, but admittedly - each time with a score in front of me. Unless the staging was absolutely captivating, I can not imagine myself surviving the show without being able to read through it as well. The chorus numbers are particularly complex. Can anyone explain the finale? Listening to it puts my mind into a spin! Such cacophony. It sounds like hell's boiled over...in a good way...

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 6:04pm

P, i can tell you that Giant is right up there with Marie Christine.

Now where was this perch you speak of?

[Pgenre]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 7:16pm

There was an African drummer who sat in a perch at the left side of the stage, ten or twelve feet above the stage floor. He was in a cage of sorts with various African instruments which were utilized in an extended solo that began Act 2, and at certain moments throughout the show. He played wildly during Marie's spell/chants and I think was meant to be an aural manifestation of the evil energy, or magic, at Marie's disposal- tangible in the very air.

When I first saw the show in previews it may have been longer than it ended up being, but he played throughout the performance and at at least one performance received the biggest ovation of the night which gives you an idea of the type of reception the show often received from its audience, despite the best efforts of Audra, Anthony, Mary, Darius, etc.

Anyway, the drummer was a cool, appropriate and interesting element in a very dense and detailed show.

P

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:47pm

Thanks for the details! (I realized that MC was first performed in a workshop in '95--I hope it doesn't take 4 years for Giant to see NEw York and/or a recording as well).

Not knowing anything about LaChiusa's scores for Nutcracker, and Lovers and Friends and only soem of Giant, Highest Yellow and Petrified Prince I do agree it seems to be his most ambitiously operatic work (when i first heard it it actually reminded me in amny ways of a development of the tradition of Porgy and Bess, though when I said so on a certain forum I got in a lot of heat lol) although Giant seems to come close. I also hear a lot of it in Bernarda Alba, which is a MUCH MUCH more intimate peice but I see similarities too (in terms of subject matter as well). (the Bernarda Alba connection may also have to do with the fact LaChiusa worked onit from conception with Graciela Daniele, they used the exact same design team, etc--true between the shows Daniele also directed LaChiua's Little Fish but that was a project she came late to))


Updated On: 9/8/09 at 10:47 PM