On Wednesday, March 5, 2003, at 04:54 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
My concern is with revivals of classic musicals (the only ones worth attending, in my recent experience) which were written for full string sections that are just not to be heard on Broadway anymore. I went to see _On the Town_ when it was revived a while back, and was shocked to hear Bernstein's string parts handled by a synth. I felt, and still feel, seriously abused by the experience, and in hindsight feel I should have demanded my money back.
I can relate to the visceral feeling of abuse Andrew reports -- over the holidays, back in Vancouver my parents took me to a much-acclaimed local production of West Side Story. I wanted to leave before the house lights even went down all the way. The band was not in a pit, or off in the wings, or at the back of the set, but locked away in a separate, soundproof room so no acoustic sound could bleed out. [???] The band consisted of one reed player, a trumpet, a trombone, two synths, and a drummer, but the mic'd sound of even the acoustic instruments was appalling -- the drum kit was mic'd and mixed like this was some sort of rock show -- and to make things worse, the acoustic instruments were completely drowned out by the synths, even in places where this made no sense. (You *have* a trumpet in the band, why overpower him with a cheesy "muted trumpet" patch?) There were some excellent singers in the cast, but they were unable to make any sort of emotional connection because they were constantly being sabotaged by these horrible synth string pads. They might as well have been singing karaoke up there. I know that the budget for regional productions will never be what it is on Broadway, but this wasn't some shoestring amateur production either -- they had considerable financial resources, they just chose to spend the money elsewhere. The truly frustrating thing is that even with exactly the same number of musicians, properly placed, playing unamplified acoustic instruments (well, except electric guitar -- I'd probably want someone playing a hollow-body electric, in place of the second keyboard player), I could have written a reduction that would actually work. No, it wouldn't be anywhere near as lush and vivid as Lenny's orchestration, but it wouldn't try to be, either. Trying to reproduce all the parts on two synthesizers was the *worst* possible solution. I know for a fact that there are people living in Vancouver who could have made this work. But they were passed over in favor of this irredeemable hack of a music director who practically raped one of the best Broadway scores ever written. And the really depressing thing is that most people in the audience seemed not to notice.
- Darcy
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