On Wed, 23 January 2002, lolipastor@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 1/23/02 11:27:45 AM, ODivaTina@a... writes:
> [Musical theater singers] don't use the extremes of their range consistently
through out the
> performance >>
> This is so true. I also do cross-over work, and I tell you, I could do 2
> performances of Camelot, Oklahoma or Brigadoon in a row, and be FINE....
Heh. A slightly different view: I was Tony in a production of West Side Story a
bit over a year ago, my first foray into musical theater since before I started
taking voice lessons eight years ago. I got the role by auditioning with the
high B flat in "Maria" - you know, the one nobody ever seems to take? By the end
of the run, I was taking the ossio that everybody does. Why? A couple of
reasons, and both add up to me never wanting to do the role again. (25 is
probably too old for it to be playable anyway at this point.)
1) The delivery required of some of the dialogue is death on the voice. Tony
screams his way through the last five to ten minutes of the show, and the
director wanted SCREAMING. I would typically have very little voice left by the
end of the show, most of it used up in the last five minutes. That *really*
sucked on days where we had two performances.
2) It's not really a true tenor role. It sits in a medium-low tessitura, with a
handful of high notes that aren't really representative of the rest of the role.
I'd say it's probably best done by a lyric baritone with a solid A natural,
doing the piano ending notes of "Maria" and the Balcony Scene in falsetto.
I found, after two or three performances where I sang the B flat, that by the
fourth performance it wasn't a B flat anybody would want to hear anymore, and I
was needing to minimize the amount of vocal wear as much as I could if I wanted
to get through the run with a voice. What the hell were Bernstein and Laurents
thinking, anyway??? It's one of the most gorgeous scores in all of musical
theater, and the way it's written you can either act it well OR sing it well.
And, in general, problem #2 is what I find in most musical theater - there
aren't a lot of legit lyric tenor roles, they're lyric baritone roles with a
high note or two. The "true" tenor roles are largely character parts, like
Nicely-Nicely Johnson, or roles where "real" singing wouldn't be appropriate -
Danny Zuko or Doody in Grease!, or the Lloyd-Webber or Boublil-Schoenberg shows,
etc. There's some in the Sondheim canon, but again, it's *mostly* for baritone.
There's Gilbert & Sullivan, but that's not really musical theater.
So, for me, no, I don't find musical theater particularly easy on my voice. Give
me a solid week of Zauberfloetes over a musical any time.
Richard
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