Clash of the Theatre

Musical Theatre is one of greatest artistic experiences of modern times. Not only does it combine and blend a wide variety of art forms, including music, theatre, visual art, and communication arts, it also has a direct tie-in to business, marketing, literature, and history. Music theatre remains one of the great collaborative ventures in the arts and perhaps in society, requiring the working together of many different people from many different types of backgrounds with specializations in many fields.

Music Theatre at its finest is grand, personal, dramatic, entertaining, emotionally satisfying, cathartic, and richly artistic at all levels. Regardless of the style or preferred medium, and we will discuss this more later, music theatre has the potential to reach into the soul of a person, shake it up a bit, and rebuild it into a stronger entity. The incongruence of music on stage juxtaposed with drama whether realistic or imagined has the potential to leave an audience member empowered with a sense of how emotions play a major role in our pragmatic existence.

From the comical moments of Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute to the anguish of the dying Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme, opera gives us an opportunity to laugh at ourselves, to cry at sadness, to sing with joy, or to reflect on sorrow, to be cleansed, to be stricken, and ultimately to be changed through great art. In musicals, and we do need to discuss the difference at some point, we have the same type of emotional experiences. We see events on stage, that when coupled with music, make them easier to deal with while augmenting the emotional impact of the situation. We laugh at the Barbershop Quartet townspeople in Music Man and we quiver in brokenness at the death of Tony in West Side Story. We wonder about Professor Higgins methods in My Fair Lady and we relate to Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof when his world gets turned upside down.

We marvel at the dancing in 42nd street and share a smile with Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. We may roll our eyes a little at the sappy return of Brigadoon due to the power of love, but at the same time we are glad it all works out in the end. We rejoice that the Von Trapps escape the Nazis, cheer when Jud is finally gone, and somehow seem saddened at the disappearance of the Phantom who loved but gave up Christine. All these events and more improve our lives and make Music Theatre the medium of choice for so many.

Although I no longer feel confident in differentiating between operas and musicals, mainly due to the inconsistency of the labels, most people define these genres based on various criteria. Some say opera is "old" while musicals are new--absurd idea but I have overheard it. Others say opera is all singing and no dialogue--this is unsupported due to extensive dialog in certain operas and predominant singing in particular musicals. Some discuss style of music including performance practice as determining whether something is an opera or a musical--strange idea easily refuted on many levels. Others like to discuss thematic differences with opera being headier, loftier, and more bourgeois--odd criterion since there are some very lofty themes in musicals. Of course some may refer to the preference of opera being in a foreign language versus musicals in English--makes little sense in today's eclectic world. But in the end, particularly in terms of today's offerings, there is no real difference in a broad sense between opera and musicals. So why is this an issue and where is the problem? There are approximately 15 modern musicals to every 1 older opera being performed in London today.

Let's talk about some current trends and problems. 1) Live musicals are very appealing to many people, 2) They are expensive, 3) Operas are deemed as the preferred musical theatre choice by musicians, 4) Musicals are deemed the preferred choice by actors and actresses. 5) Collaboration between music departments and theatre departments is severely handicapped by a combination of preferences, egos, elitism, and styles. In short, collaboration is nearly a myth.

These truths make music theatre very challenging in academic settings as well as the professional world. Therefore it is not unusual to find music departments focusing on opera (particularly from the late 18th and 19th centuries) and theatre departments bent on doing American music theatre. The result, sadly, is often theatre programs with great acting and poor singing and/or music programs with great singing and poor acting. This complexity is so prevalent and common that it has come to be expected in academic circles.

The elitism of educated musicians who view American musicals as lesser art forms than 19th century operas have actually polarized the art forms into factions that seem insurmountably separate. Add to this the preference, right or wrong, of theatre people who look to acting ability over musical skill and we have a chasm of artistic void that is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to bridge. How do we overcome such mediocre trappings? Is it possible to create an environment of collaboration, mutual respect, honoring the old and the new, creating a theatre production that meets all needs and at a high level? This is yet another example of the cultural clash that exists in music today. This problem is not institutional nor market driven but, instead is a result of cultural differences and musical preferences.