Why I did'nt buy Bernadette!

Posted: 6/9/03 at 9:50am

Is this all that it takes?

A few crocodile tears and a woman with a bad case of the jitters to drive people to use words like “Brilliant” and “electrifying”?

She was hoarse.

She was nervous.

She had problem with notes that Merman could sing in her sleep.

There were phrases that were weakly sung or finessed.

She lacked any kind of real vocal weight to make the number her own!

She modified vowel sounds to produce a tone.

She over –emoted to make up for severe vocal limitations. The emotion didn’t seem genuine rather, pasted on.

. and might I add, as someone who took enough music classes in my life, I can safely say that

…She was out of f----- tune in some spots!

On that one, there can be no debate! If you’re flat, you’re flat!

In other words, I didn’t buy it.

Just my opinion.

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:10am

Personally, I thought she was great.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:18am

yes, voiceanth, I noyiced those too. I hear people b!tch and maon that marissa was 'out of tune', but that is the character's voice and it works for he character. You can't B.S. the music for Mamma Rose. She was good, I give her that. The only section, for me, that made me go "wow", was the stammered 'mamma's got to let go'. That section was one of the onlt times where I have been able to understand through the performances that she is saying that beacsue she CAN'T let go.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:31am

Alright first of all I don't agree with you on anything you said. She understood that character to a tee. That is what matters.

She was hoarse- BULL

She was nervous- didn't see that at ALL...but if she was she was understandably. Singing the hardest role ever written and the hardest song, with 3 women before you who people say were all better. I think there was a lot on her shoulders.

She had problem with notes that Merman could sing in her sleep- once again Merman could sing it but as Arthur Laurents said she couldn't act it!

There were phrases that were weakly sung or finessed- She was acting- that is what was important. Not the notes and how toned or finessed they are. She was acting it, not worrying about the notes and that is what makes her BRILLIANT AND ELECTRIFYING!

She lacked any kind of real vocal weight to make the number her own!-Are you deaf- did you hear her sing the first "Everything's coming up Roses!"

She modified vowel sounds to produce a tone.- It's Bernadette Peters- she can modify whatever the f*** she wants.

She over –emoted to make up for severe vocal limitations. The emotion didn’t seem genuine rather, pasted on.- Not true at all

And if you have taken so many music classes you would know that Marissa "was out of f----- tune" the whole time!

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:37am

"It's Bernadette Peters- she can modify whatever the f*** she wants."

Now THAT is a bunch of bull. Just because you sare a star doesn't mean you can go on a stage do anything you want to the show. If someone had sain that about a non-star performer you would be having a sh!tfit about how you can't change crap and do whatever you want.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:40am

Bernadette Peters has a distinct sound. That's what makes her wonderful. Voiceanth calls it modifying I call it Bernadette's voice. And her voice is one in a million. And she didn't modify the show. Voiceanth is talking about vowel sounds. It's her voice and she can do what she wants with it. She was still very respectful to Styne's music. Updated On: 6/9/03 at 10:40 AM

[CJR]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:55am

I heard she was fierce at rehearsal.. and I heard she was great last night as well. It's unfortunate though that those two performances don't directly reflect on her overall performance in Gypsy.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 10:58am

How would you know her overall performance? How many times have you seen it?

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:00am

once again Merman could sing it but as Arthur Laurents said she couldn't act it!



Voiceanth: She did'nt need to act it! It's all there!

In The VOICE!..

She did'nt need to "sprech-stime" the thing as a way of acting it because she could'nt sing it.

Merman's final "For me" is like a freakin' gun shot!

As for Marisa and the issue of pitch, she was dancing like a mental patient..which is always going to make keeping the support in place, a major task...

Bernadette was not doing the watusi!

...and as for modified vowel sounds, I think it's acceptable..

ONLY...

When one is singing "Lucia di Lammermoor", and when one is worried about singing a high D, in alt..

...but baby, when ya gotta modify a vowel to sing a Middle C...

..below high C...

Well...

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:07am

She modified vowel sounds to produce a tone.- It's Bernadette Peters- she can modify whatever the f*** she wants.

Voiceanth: Not even if you’re Maria Callas, whom Ms. Peters is most definitely not.....

As Callas once said: A singer is there to serve the COMPOSER..... not the other way around.

[Albin]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:12am

"I hear people b!tch and maon that marissa was 'out of tune', but that is the character's voice and it works for he character"

Really? Then why is she not out of tune on the OCR?

Updated On: 6/9/03 at 11:12 AM

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:16am

I don't know what to tell you except that I completely disagree with you. A singer who doesn't act a song is a dud on stage. I don't want to watch and I think most people wouldn't. The music isn't going to just go to work on it's own. That would be like just reading Shakespeare outloud with no emotion. Music and words don't speak for themselves. They have to be performed with emotions. Otherwise they belong on a shelf. And if the emotions get in the way of the voice, so be it. It's more interesting to watch someone who truly understands the meaning of the song than it is to watch someone who is just singing the right notes. If Bernadette or anyone for that matter stood dead still center stage and sang that song with no emotion or feeling they would be booed of the stage. Steven Sondheim happened to hate Merman in the role, he called her a pain to work with who didn't understand his lyrics at all. It's not just Laurents. I'm sure if you told Sondheim what you just told me he would laugh in your face. It's a theaterical song, it is meant to be acted. It's not a museum piece. And your references to all these operatic pieces have nothing to do with musical theater. Of course in opera the singer serves the composer, in an opera the most important part is the music. Not the case in musical theater and anyone who thinks so shouldn't be involved in the art form. In musical theater no one serves anyone. The actor doesn't serve the composer and the composer doesn't serve the actor. They work together.
For as Harold Clurman once said "a script cannot do all the 'work' as a play; it does not play itslef" (same goes for the music) Updated On: 6/9/03 at 11:16 AM

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:17am

So since it's a character voice it can be out of tune? What?!

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:26am

I don't know what to tell you except that I completely disagree with you. A singer who doesn't act a song is a dud on stage. I don't want to watch and I think most people wouldn't.

VOICEANTH: What I was trying to say is that Merman acted with her VOICE! Listen to the OBC. It's powerful as hell.

Steven Sondheim happened to hate Merman in the role, he called her a pain to work with who didn't understand his lyrics at all. It's not just Laurents.

VOICEANTH: WHERE did Sondheim say that? Her performance is still considered one of the seminal ones in the history of the American Musical Theatre. I am sure at the time Sondheim kissed the ground she walked on as he was an up and coming songwriter and she was one of the biggest legends in the theatre.


I'm sure if you told Sondheim what you just told me he would laugh in your face. It's a theaterical song, it is meant to be acted.

VOICEANTH: With the Voice! If you can't sing it, Ya can't act it!Gestures and painted on emotion mean nothing if you can't sing the song.

[magruder]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 11:54am

Not my personal judgment, but I remember Sondheim being quoted somewhere as calling Merman "the singing dog". I know he was always unhappy about her mauling of the triplets at the end of "Everything's Coming Up Roses".

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 12:03pm

I'm sorry but I don't find the OBC with Ethel powerful at all. I find the Angela Lansbury recording much more powerful. As for when Steven Sondheim said that it is in several books written by him and about him. And believe me Sondheim didn't kiss the ground she walked on. She refused to sing several of his lyrics saying that they would make the audience hate her and she refused to let him write any of the music because he was too new. There are several interviews with him as well where he says the same thing. And if her performance is SO seminal why did she lose to Mary Martin's that year? hmmm....The work is seminal and she is well known for having performed such a wonderful piece. Don't get me wrong. Ethel Merman is a theatrical icon. She could tear down the house with her voice but as an actress, well, she wasn't up to par. You keep saying if you can sing it, you can act it. That's simply not true. I saw Alice Ripley in a production this fall of Tell Me On a Sunday and while she sang the role beautifully she gave possibly the worst performance I have ever seen on a stage. And that is because all she did was sing the songs, she didn't act anything. When her big numbers came she simply stopped acting and she sang the songs.

Here are some things people said about Ethel:
Sondheim- He told a handful of anecdotes about Broadway grande dame Ethel Merman, a brassy, overpowering woman trained in the low comedy of old Broadway. "She was very straightforward; she was not terribly bright," said Sondheim, who worked with her on "Gypsy" in the late 1950s. During a recording session of Gypsy Ethel refused to say one of Sondheim's lyrics because she was afraid the audience would dislike her and her character. Sondheim was so mad by this that later when he was recruited to say 'YOU AIN'T GETTIN' 88 CENTS FROM ME ROSE' he used his anger and frustration with her as the motivation to say the line for the recording.
Laurents talks about her in his memoirs in review one said- "The great Merm’s fans may not be thrilled to read his assessment of the Gypsy star’s mental agility." In a recent USA today article Laurents adds that Ethel Merman, "who introduced the lead role in Gypsy and is still regarded by many as the quintessential Rose,'was, for all her glorious voice, scarcely a layered actress.'" His favourite Roses were the two he himself directed on Broadway - Tyne Daley and Angela Lansbury, he said in one interview before this years production.

And yes magruder Sondheim said exactly that. He was also furious after he played Roses Turn for her the first time and he asked her what she thought about it and she said, "hmm...where do the 'mommas' go; on the up or the downbeat." He told her it didn't matter, that she could do them when the moment felt right and she laughed at him and insisted on a "real" answer. Yeah she was really working for the composers wasn't she? Updated On: 6/9/03 at 12:03 PM

Posted: 6/9/03 at 12:25pm

I consider myself lucky to have seen Peters asDot in "Sunday" at the Booth...

…And later, Song and Dance.... both were wonderful, luminous performances...

And the music and roles both suited her like a glove.

No one can dispute that she is one of the last great ladies of the stage that we have.

I’m just saying, along with others, that I don’t think this role and its demands are suited to her.

Just my opinion.

I have a feeling this performance on the telecast and at the Schubert, will be discussed many years from now...and in the end, that pretty fantastic.....

Posted: 6/9/03 at 12:25pm

I have to say that I completely agree with you bestofbroadway. Bernadette gave the best performance on the TONY awards in a long time. I have seen both Hairspray and Gypsy and I would have to say that Bernadette's work on Gypsy is far superior to anything Marissa has done. As for last night Bernadette was flawless, she acted the song so well. And after all that is what matters. If you want to hear flawless singing with every vowel correct get a CD, that is not the only thing that is important on stage.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 12:32pm

And just as often as you have loved her I too have disliked her. She was amazing in Sunday and nothing beats the OBC of Mack and Mabel. She is also the only person who can make me think the music of Andrew Llyod Webber is worth listening to (Song & Dance.) But I thought she was dreadful in Annie Get Your Gun. I was shocked when they announced that she would be Mama Rose. But when I saw her on stage and with last nights performance she has proven me wrong. She is the perfect Mama Rose.

[broadwayboy]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 12:56pm

She was incredible... Get over it...

[TheaterBaby]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 1:28pm

I thought she was incredible too, even though she didn't hold the last note very long. But she's even better in the actual show because she doesn't have to rush through the song like she did last night.

Wouldn't you be nervous if it was just you up there representing an entire show? The other performances had their entire cast and then some (La Boheme). Bernadette was there with nothing but a brick wall and lights, and yet it was (in my opinion) the best performance of the evening!

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 1:33pm

She pulled it off very well!

[DoReMi]

Posted: 6/9/03 at 6:40pm

Please ignore what bestofbroadway is saying. He is ignorant not only to the world of musical theater but also the process of singing. His comments are embarrising. He's coming off as a rabid fan who can't see anything but his own thoughts.

"bestofbraodway". I don't think so

[Phantom05]

Posted: 6/10/03 at 12:46am

Bernadette's character Mamma Rose is supposed to be choked-up during the song "Rose's Turn", so any sense of hoarsness or nervousness can be attributed to the way the character is feeling during that point in the show!!! I think she was great!!!

See Ya!!!

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 6/10/03 at 7:39am

Right DoReMi. I know nothing about singing. Yeah me and everyone I quoted on the topic. Don't get your panties in a twist cause I hated Marissa and loved Bernadette. There simply was no competition and Bernadette simply has the best voice on Broadway.