Wild Party, Composer Question

Which version of The Wild Party do people prefer - Michael John LaChiusa or Andrew Lippa? Have got the LaChiusa version on CD, but a few people have said that the other one is better. Should I be investing in another CD?

I'm with you Mark, but i love listening to the both.

Disagree 1000% with you. Lippa's is poppy, sure, (like Schwartz wrote it), but LaChiusa's is true to period and genuinely haunting. The staging is, for me, arguably the greatest of any musical. Certainly the lighting!

I know, I know, you can't hear that on the CD, but how can anyone compete with 2- yes, 2- stand out tracks from the divine Miss Kitt? Plus Toni Colette in a scrumptious role!

I don't know Lippa's version, so can't comment on the which is better than discussion..but I can agree with devonian that the actual production and casting of the LaChiusa version was superb.

The sight of Miss Kitt sashaying onto the stage was worth it in itself!

LaChiusa. Lippa's version is ok, if a bit generic, but it didn't really capture the era or the mounting tension brilliantly expressed in LaChiusa's complex score. He keeps you on edge from the opening chord and rarely offers much breathing room from start to finish. It's an uneasy and unsettling score that underscores the danger of a party spinning perilously out of control. Lippa provides a more conventional musical comedy score that has some solid stand-alone numbers, but could be dropped into a variety of stories and eras. LaChiusa's score sounds more custom-fitted to the material.

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Updated On: 5/5/09 at 05:38 PM

I don't think Lippa's score is in any way "poppy". It's full of great dramatic and evocative songs that are both perfect for the piece and beautiful to listen to. LaChiusa's score may well be complex and true to the period, etc. But I just can't stand listening to it! lol I generally do not like "poppy" scores and much prefer serious, complex scores in my musicals (love Sondheim, Guettel, Finn, JRB, etc.) But I'm afraid everything I've ever heard of LaChiusa's leaves me totally cold - and really painful to listen to.

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Oh, God - no! Marie Christine makes me want to scream. It's absolute torture to my ears, I'm afraid.

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Wow, to me it's like people saying Sondheim doesn't write memorable songs. MC has so much going for it. And Audra is unbelievable. I find the show incredibly moving, dramatic and melodic. Same goes for Wild Party (though the end is, admittedly, in free fall)

The only score I've ever suffered through that I found more painful than a LaChiusa score is Caroline Or Change.

Oh, wow. I loved Caroline, Or Change at first sight. I Hate the Bus was my favorite song of the season. LaChiusa definitely demands a bit of work from the audience and his songs often are not about creating memorable melodies but are more abstract expressions of emotions and social dynamics. I do think he has some memorable tunes in there, though. Specifically pertaining to with The Wild Party: Welcome to My Party is rather Sondheim-esque Uptown is a toe-tapping tribute to Fats Waller. People Like Us is a sultry smoky torch song conjuring images of early jazz nightclub cabaret. What I like about LaChiusa is that he often takes a simple melody, then subtly inserts lines taking the notes into unexpected directions and then landing them precisely where we originally thought they would previously land, marrying standard convention with the almost improvisational style of jazz. With Marie Christine he blends musical theatre with a dash of jazz (adding his own shades to the backdrops of New Orleans and Chicago) and then hitting us with modern opera in order to elevate the scale appropriately to the Greek tragedy at the root of the story. It's genius.

I do think LaChiusa has to be approached with the right frame of mind. It's like trying to view a Renoir or Monet the way you would a Boticelli or Fragonard. And it's very difficult to take his songs out of context. He writes the entire score as a whole rather than individual numbers related by the book. Sondheim and Bernstein did this as well, but not always to the extent LaChiusa does.

How do you feel about William Finn? Most of the people I know who don't like LaChiusa or Caroline or Change also don't like Finn for similar reasons. They feel shows like Falsettos and A New Brain are too abstract for musical theatre.

Now if you want to talk intolerable, try listening to My Life With Albertine. That is one score I felt was completely off the rails. LaChiusa is Richard Rodgers by comparison.

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This is a really interesting thread!

Bob, I'm totally with you on Caroline or Change. It felt like every time a song was about to emerge, the composer ran in the opposite direction!

Matt, I totally agree.

Albertine- made me feel I'd missed the point. Tried again. Decided the point wasn't worth finding.

And Bill Finn? Legendary. The true heir to Sondheim. Want to laugh, cry, feel true emotional exhilaration? He's your man.

Hmm, what I like about the Broadway version is that it incorporates all those colourful characters.

Pretty much what Luke-H*** said. LaChiusa may achieve greater literary and academic heights, but the Lippa score is just a far more enjoyable experience for me.