SONG OF BERNADETTE musical

I learned that Frank Wildhorne is involved with a musical based on the story of Bernadette of Lourdes.

As someone who volunteered for 16 summers at the Shrine of Lourdes in France, I can't see this really working as a musical. Additionally, the song from the show that Jeremy Jordan performs on YouTube sounds either country/western or bluegrass, not Frech or Basque.

I sense disaster.

The lyric of the song pretty much fits the story, it's the arrangement that is wrong.

Jeremy Jordan might actually be attached to the show. He'd be fine as the miller's son who was smitten with Bernadette. In fact, this song was probably written for that character.

My family used to watch the 1943 Jennifer Jones movie (FYI: available to watch on both YouTube and Amazon) on WGN nearly every year. It was a family favorite when we were kids, but I haven't watched it as an adult to know if I hold the same reverence for it, beyond sentimental nostalgia.

I'm never a fan of musical composers who don't connect musical style with setting, even though I often enjoy Wildhorn's scores out of context. It's lazy and disconnected score writing, IMO.

I think "Bonnie and Clyde" was probably his only score that gets the connection right - just happenstance, maybe? Bottom line is that I think a score should be interlocked with all elements of a show including plot, characters, AND setting.

His whole score (beyond this one song) will probably be very listenable, but I don't predict the show will be produced on Broadway. Wildhorn's never made his bank on being produced, however. I think he'll probably keep doing more of what he's always done. It seems to be satisfactory for him.

I'm never a fan of musical composers who don't connect musical style with setting, even though I often enjoy Wildhorn's scores out of context. It's lazy and disconnected score writing, IMO.



As I previously mentioned, the style of music Wildhorn uses here is very suitable for the setting of a provincial mountain town in France. Believe it or not, Country and Bluegrass style of music, along with Rock ‘n Roll, is written and enjoyed in countries other than America, including France. To assert that it is lazy for a composer to not match their score to the setting when one knows nothing about the music actually played in that setting is really what’s lazy. Thank God that Andrew Lloyd Webber never was dumb enough to use an electric guitar in the title song in Phantom of the Opera or that Lin Manuel Miranda was never careless enough to use any other instruments than piccolos and snare drums in his orchestrations for Hamilton. They would have had big, lazy flops on their shoulders had they deviated from their shows’ settings.

pmensky said: "As I previously mentioned, the style of music Wildhorn uses here is very suitable for the setting of a provincial mountain town in France. Believe it or not, Country and Bluegrass style of music, along with Rock ‘n Roll, is written and enjoyed in countries other than America, including France. To assert that it is lazy for a composer to not match their score to the setting when one knows nothing about the music actually played in that setting is really what’s lazy. Thank God that Andrew Lloyd Webber never was dumb enough to use an electric guitar in the title song in Phantom of the Opera or that Lin Manuel Miranda was never careless enough to use any other instruments than piccolos and snare drums in his orchestrations for Hamilton. They would have had big, lazy flops on their shoulders had they deviated from their shows’ settings."

Not swayed.

Although the use of the fiddle is in keeping with the style, the driving country rock beat (similar to that used in "One Second and a Million Miles" from The Bridges of Madison County) is not. Your examples of Phantom and Hamilton show how disconnected your argument is.

John Adams said:
Not swayed.
Your examples of Phantom and Hamilton show how disconnected your argument is."

Did you forget what you wrote, or just are you just pretending that what you wrote is invisible to all of us? You said “I'm never a fan of musical composers who don't connect musical style with setting…It's lazy and disconnected score writing, IMO.” Do you understand that when you use the word, “setting” it refers to time and place and that hip hop and rap wasn’t around in New York in 1776, and electric guitars weren’t around in Paris in the 1880s? The only “disconnect” I’m seeing here is between you and basic knowledge of the subject at hand.

This could have been an Al Carmines project.

Let's just hope that this version of the story is more successful than the one that Walter and Jean Kerr wrote. It played in London a few years back.

All this banter about the song may be negated once the show goes into rehearsal. Remember that many fine tunes have been cut from their scores for one reason or another once the rehearsals and previews start.

Milwaukee's Skylight Music Theatre announced that they will be producing THE SONG OF BERNADETTE as a finale to their upcoming 2022-2023 season. I recently attended Skylgiht's "season announcement" event, and one very attractive song was introduced to potential subscribers. Here's a video of the event. Frank Wildhorn's ballad starts at approximately 26 minutes into the clip:

Skylight's 2022-2023 Season Announcement

broadwaydanwi said: "Milwaukee's Skylight Music Theatre announced that they will be producing THE SONG OF BERNADETTE as a finale to their upcoming 2022-2023 season. I recently attended Skylgiht's "season announcement" event, and one very attractive song was introduced to potential subscribers. Here's a video of the event. Frank Wildhorn's ballad starts at approximately 26 minutes into the clip:

Skylight's 2022-2023 Season Announcement"



Thanks for posting the link. As my grandchildren don't live that far from Milwaukee, I think I'll be catching a flight to visit them and see the show.

8

John Adams said: "An "I Want" song for St Bernadette? This Disney version of St. Bernadette looks to be as disconnected from reality as pmensky."

Disney is not involved in this production, and the song Jeremy Jordan sings is neither sung by Bernadette nor an “I want” song. “I want” songs are sung by the central character at the beginning of the story. Jordan’s character is a secondary one, and this song is sung just before the spring is discovered which takes place well into the story. Keep calling me names, referring to me as a child, etc., but please continue insulting me while also saying a bunch of wacky, inaccurate stuff, contradicting yourself, then pretending you never wrote what we can all read. You’re very entertaining, and your lack of knowledge is very easy to point out.

Okay, this is a generational thing, I'm sure, but I was envisioning more of a Rodgers and Hammerstein score for this story but I'm hearing music that is closer to "pop". (Yes, I admit that I'm in my 70's)