Musicals?

[LaciDeeLeBlanc]

What do you think about them?  As far as I'm concerned, musicals are the melting pot of almost every musical genre, very American.  In a musical, one can find nearly every existing genre of music there is.  Not necessarily in every single musical mind you, goodness no.  Yet I find that showtunes cover a ton of ground, don't you?  For example:

Rent - "Rock Opera", the instrumentation has no strings or winds that I know of, the orchestration is mainly that of a rock band, guitar, drums, and ALOT of keyboard.

The King and I - as far as I know, the orchestration is full orchestra

Mamma Mia and Hairspray - I find that there are pop elements in both of these musicals

Aida - has a middle eastern feel, it uses the "gypsy" scale. also pop elements as well as a gospel flavor in the mix as well

Crazy for You - has a jazzy aspect of it, "broadway" jazz, but still not true jazz (hence Gershwin)

West Side Story - this musical has a full orchestra, the music is of the 20th century period in classical music, yet it possesses some intensely complex latin rhythms

What d'ya think?

[jochanaan]

While the musical theater has great potential as both drama and music, it's seldom that you find a musical that's great both musically and dramatically.  West Side Story is one of the exceptions.  Of course, Leonard Bernstein's music needs no commentary, and as drama it's a fine, original retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story.

But otherwise, musicals are the 20th-century incarnation of operetta.  (That's not really a stab at them; operettas and musicals can both be great fun.)