Ragtime Coming to City Opera- Page 2
Ragtime Coming to City Opera
#26re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 1:59pmI leaped for joy when I was old this good news. I think a large theatre is a must for a show of this scale, its not just a spectacle tho, with the most amazing book, and a Score thats up the par with he book, its no doubt a Master Piece. This will be amazing and I will be there opening night!
I'll have them clawing at eachother, like drag queens at a wig sale"
#27re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 2:42pm
I agree with the idea that City Opera often "misses the mark" when it performs Broadway musicals. BRIGADOON and WONDERFUL TOWN are two examples. However, THE MOST HAPPY FELLA was an exception--it was a wonderful production of a wonderful show and should be in its repertory.
As for RAGTIME, I would like to give it another chance. I was disappointed in the OBC production, feeling that there were just too many characters to make for an effective theatre work. I had no problem with the cast, especially Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell. But the over-amplification was an unnecessary horror show.
"Madam Rose...and her daughter...Gypsy!"
bwaylvsong
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
#28re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 5:14pm
Interesting. My school (LaGuardia Arts HS) is across the street from NYCO. We did Ragtime in December (I was J.P. Morgan) and will do Pirates of Penzance in May (I will play the Major-General). NYCO is assisting us with Pirates (and our opera program in general) and very well may have gotten the idea to produce Ragtime while catching our simpler, yet grandiose production.
I will have to take a trip from whatever college I go to and see this. If they use some of our ideas, I will make sure to mention it.
sidjones09
Leading Actor Joined: 1/4/07
#29re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 5:37pmTHERE IS A GOD!!!
"If you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better." - David Mamet
#30re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 5:44pmJust tell me when tickets go on sale!
I'll have them clawing at eachother, like drag queens at a wig sale"
#31re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 5:49pm
Someone is reporting on ATC that the cast will include Stokes, Peter Friedman and Judy Kaye reprising their roles, and Anika Noni Rose as Sarah. They are apparently trying to get Marin Mazzie back as Mother, as well.
Personally, I'd love to see Broadway talent and opera stars interweaved in this production, as they have done before. Imagine Renee Fleming as Mother...
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
sidjones09
Leading Actor Joined: 1/4/07
#32re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 6:09pm
"Personally, I'd love to see Broadway talent and opera stars interweaved in this production, as they have done before. Imagine Renee Fleming as Mother..."
I love Renee Fleming, don't get me wrong, but I cringed when you suggested her for Mother. Don't you think she would stick out like a sore thumb? I don't think she would work, but she is an amazing artist.
"If you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better." - David Mamet
Fenchurch
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/16/06
#33re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 6:14pm
I completely disagree about ALNM working at the NYS theater. I thought the show was too intimate for the huge stage, and they have a mediocre amplification system that was no good for the production and I thought that Jeremy Irons was horrendous.
What DID work was Most Happy Fella (at least with Sorvino's understudy who was phenomenal whereas Sorvino should have been put out of his misery), that needs a bigger house, its an opera, really. In its scope at least.
Not so much with Ragtime, while its a big, even epic, show, it's not operatic in scope and I don't understand why NYCO chose it other than to bring in money. With more and more opera companies doing pieces like Passion and other musical theater pieces that share quite a lot with contemporary as well as past opera, ragtime seems an odd choice to me.
Even their Candide wasn't what it could have been, they should have used a different version, to begin with, and someone other than John Cullum (who I usually adore, but was vocally miscast as Pangloss).
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual."
-Keen on Kean
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
#34re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 6:15pmShe would do well if they were aiming for a more opera-centric cast. She's completely wrong alongside Rose and Stokes.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
bwaylvsong
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
#35re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 6:20pmActually, Renee Fleming started out as a jazz singer, and belts her butt off on her Broadway duets CD with Bryn Terfel. I think she would pleasantly surprise us, even though I do not think she would accept the gig.
ThankstoPhantom
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/05
#36re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 6:43pmIf this is going to be similar to the original (which I missed), I'll be there in a heartbeat. If it's going to be different, I'll still be there in a heartbeat.
How to properly use its/it's:
Its is the possessive. It's is the contraction for it is...
#37re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 7:20pm
"If this is going to be similar to the original (which I missed), I'll be there in a heartbeat. If it's going to be different, I'll still be there in a heartbeat."
AMEN!
I'll have them clawing at eachother, like drag queens at a wig sale"
TheEnchantedHunter
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/27/05
#38re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 10:24pm
I'll save my heartbeats for a better production of a better show at NYCO. And MARGARET GARNER is in its own way as unfulfilling.
Dorothy Brock
42nd Street
Updated On: 4/29/08 at 10:24 PM
#39re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 10:39pmI'd kind of prefer seeing opera names do it at NYCO as well. It would certainly be different.
Chrysanthemum62001
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/14/04
#40re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 10:42pmI gotta say, I'm really excited about this. I didn't get to see the Broadway production, and I have been DYING to see a professional production of this for years. To me, the music is the most important thing in this show, and I am sure NYC Opera will do it justice. Yay, I am so excited now.
"What a mystery this world. One day you love them and the next day you want to kill them a thousand times over." The Masked Bandit in THE FALL
#41re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/5/07 at 11:43pm
All opera cast:
Renee Fleming as Mother
Bryn Terfel as Tateh
Anna Netrebko as Evelyn Nesbitt
Deborah Voigt as Emma Goldman
Nathan Gunn as Younger Brother
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
whatever2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/25/06
#42re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 9:36am
> And MARGARET GARNER is in its own way as unfulfilling a musical theatre piece as RAGTIME.
cant let that one pass without comment.
ARE YOU NUTS??? margaret garner has some of the most beautiful music and wrenching drama in the modern repertoire. it is not flawless as either music or drama, but it is unfathomable to me that someone would choose words like "unfulfilling" and "waste of resources" to describe this work.
i went to detroit for the world premiere ... the audience was absolutely moved, to a person. i dont think anyone went home unfulfilled that night.
"You, sir, are a moron." (PlayItAgain)
OasisBroadway
Leading Actor Joined: 9/28/05
#44re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 10:04am
I haven't posted yet but Ragtime is one of my favorite musicals and I could be more pleased at this news! My only quip is this:
"Someone is reporting on ATC that the cast will include Stokes, Peter Friedman and Judy Kaye reprising their roles, and Anika Noni Rose as Sarah. They are apparently trying to get Marin Mazzie back as Mother, as well. "
I know Marin has mentioned many times that the only way she would return to the show is if the whole lead cast were to reprise their roles. Wth Anika playing Sarah, I'm not certain that she would go for it...unless I'm completly off base. Lets hope I am!
Happy...Everything!
Kaye Thompson
#45re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 10:09am
Eeek! Anika reads so young on stage, and Stokes looks 60 now.
I'm a little afraid of Coalhouse and his walker chasing after Sarah Doe Eyes.
Aside from the Fred Astaire/Audrey Hepburn creepy factor, I hope they televise this!!!
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#46re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 10:23am
Very funny line, B12B, but I have to say I just saw Stokes a few days ago in a local Starbucks and if he looks 60, then that is one hot 60 year old. (I know he isn't 60, he's not even 50 yet)
And in the huge environs of the State Theatre, it probably won't matter - past the 6th row everything looks like you're watching from the wrong end of the binoculars.
None of the replacements in New York were as good as he was in that role. He owns it.
Cheyenne Jackson tickled me. AFTER ordering SoMMS a drink but NOT tickling him, and hanging out with Girly in his dressing room (where he DIDN'T tickle her) but BEFORE we got married. To others. And then he tweeted Boobs. He also tweeted he's good friends with some chick on "The Voice" who just happens to be good friends with Tink's ex. And I'm still married. Oh, and this just in: "Pettiness, spite, malice ....Such ugly emotions... So sad." - After Eight, talking about MEEEEEEEE!!! I'm so honored! :-)
#47re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 10:32am
I hope they do not get Anika. Because of the success of Dreamgirls I fear that they may bill her as:
Anika Noni Rose in
RAGTIME
and then the audience will make the Rent audiences look behaved.
and Stokes still looks yummy
sidjones09
Leading Actor Joined: 1/4/07
#48re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 11:43am
Anika is the perfect choice for Sarah, right now. Although my love for Audra haunts me while I type this, I actually would love to see Anika in this role.
What scares me about Coalhouse is, if not Stokes, then who? That's what scares me. I can't think of one star singer/actor that I want to see in this role. I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I want to see Norm Lewis do it. I am sure there are some lower profile singer/actors who would be great, but if they're going with an all star cast and Brian can't do it. Then who?
"If you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better." - David Mamet
#49re: Ragtime Coming to City Opera
Posted: 2/6/07 at 12:40pm"Stokes" is not the end-all and be-all of Coalhouse Walker, Jr. There's nothing wrong with taking an exeperienced "new-comer," surrounding him more well-known performers, and giving him his big break in a production like this. I would kill to see (and hear) Norm Lewis as Coalhouse. True, he's not the youngest guy out there, but without the Javert beard, he reads much younger on stage.
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