Just a few nit-picky things:
Herbert Kretzmer claims that about 1/3 of the original french text was a translation... he did do quite a bit by himself. For example, the original French Les Mis started with "At the End of the Day" so ... a lot was "conceived" by Kretzmer.
Kretzmer was approached by Boublil to do the lyrics, however, he did not turn it down because of Phantom of the Opera... which is quite clear since Hart wrote them. Kretzmer was offered to be the lyricist of Phantom, but he ended up urging Webber to try to change some of the characters, which would've delayed production,, and Webber didn't want that.
Similarly, he wanted to do "Miss Saigon" and wanted it to succeed. He is quoted in Behr's book as saying "You should have an American who could reach for the idioms instinctively. I'm a South African born resident of London, not a US lyrics writer." Also, it was clear to him that Boublil wanted to write the english lyrics with him, so it wouldn't be exactly like Les Miserables where he worked by himself. Meanwhile, Mackintosh had been contacting Maltby, who only took the job after hearing the beautiful score. In fact, he thought B&S were crazy at first to do a story on Vietnam, but with of course, hearing the score and seeing other Vietnam movies come out, he took the job.
Also, I don't think Maltby is the reason why there's the "big mac" line or anything in Heat is On in Saigon. Once again, Boublil did a major part of the lyrics. One problem with Boublil is that he doesn't know where the accents go, so that's where Maltby helped a lot... (Maltby was quoted in the book as trying to explain the "big mac" accents in relationship to some other accented word, so I think the big mac idea was Boublil's, although you can't be sure). In addition to this, Boublil usually got his way with lyrics. For example, Maltby really hated the lyrics for "The Movie in My Mind" but they were kept in. But Maltby, I believe, is quite a genius with words... I certainly respect his lyrics, e.g. in Baby, and even in Song and Dance.
And in "The Confrontation" actually, were Maltby's favorite lyrics... I think it was actually one of the better lyrics in the musical (as opposed to what someone else said). Especially, it has that line where the lyrics go "So I wanted to save her, protect her, Christ I am American, How could I fail to do good?" which really shows the perception at the time. And uh, the lyrics "Let me tell you the way it was, back when I was a different man, back when I didn't have a clue who I am" make perfect sense. Because the person he is currently is not the person he was back then. You obviously can't say "back when I didn't have a clue who I was" because he's changed now. And similarly, you can't say, "Let me tell you the way it is, back when I am a different man" since it's trying to portray the past tense. While the last statement of course references his current being.
And yeah, on that note, I heard Maltby has been contacted to help re-work The Pirate Queen, which I hope makes it better. I seriously love Boublil and Schonberg and recently saw The Pirate Queen, and despite what others say, I liked the show, though some story telling parts were not done well... so I think Maltby will really offer a new view to the show and use part of his "genius" to make it better. I certainly believe that Boublil is already very good -- possibly even a master of the English language -- but sometimes you just need another view point to make a show better.
Updated On: 11/12/06 at 11:42 PM
