#1
Posted: 1/30/08 at 9:35pm
"Oh hear America singing, citizens of New York, as you never have heard it before. Hearken to your everyday sisters and brothers — the lost, the lonely, the fetishists, the freaks — as their voices swell and meld into one common chord of longing: to be seen, to be heard, to be (oh yes) famous.
Will it turn out that the great American musical of the early 21st century is an opera born in Britain? A convincing case for the rights to that title was made by the celestial “Jerry Springer: The Opera,” the notorious show from London about the transcendent within tabloid television, when it opened Tuesday night in a gorgeously sung concert version at Carnegie Hall for a sinfully short run of two performances.
Now “celestial” might seem an ill-chosen adjective for a work devoted to the raw and nasty public doings of a throng of aspiring celebrities with dirty little secrets expressed in dirty little words. But this remarkable work —which features a spectacularly inventive score by Richard Thomas, with a book and lyrics by Mr. Thomas and Stewart Lee — uncovers something grand within the small, squalid lives it portrays..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/theater/30cnd-springer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
Will it turn out that the great American musical of the early 21st century is an opera born in Britain? A convincing case for the rights to that title was made by the celestial “Jerry Springer: The Opera,” the notorious show from London about the transcendent within tabloid television, when it opened Tuesday night in a gorgeously sung concert version at Carnegie Hall for a sinfully short run of two performances.
Now “celestial” might seem an ill-chosen adjective for a work devoted to the raw and nasty public doings of a throng of aspiring celebrities with dirty little secrets expressed in dirty little words. But this remarkable work —which features a spectacularly inventive score by Richard Thomas, with a book and lyrics by Mr. Thomas and Stewart Lee — uncovers something grand within the small, squalid lives it portrays..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/theater/30cnd-springer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
