Many of the works being staged at opera houses are often considered hybrids of operas and musicals, in part because of their vocal demands, but also because they were written by composers who were hugely influenced by the American musical.
“The King and I” will be staged in June with the American opera superstar Susan Graham, a favorite among French audiences. Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” last year (reorchestrated by Michael Starobin for that production with a 46-person orchestra) and his 1987 musical “Into the Woods” (running April 1-12). The Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with its rich history of French operettas, has become known more in the last few years as a venue for American musicals, including the French premieres of Mr. The Lyric Opera is staging the Big Five - “Oklahoma!,” “The Sound of Music,” “Carousel,” “The King and I” and “South Pacific” - over five seasons, the first time the Rodgers and Hammerstein company has given such approval to an opera company.Īnd opera houses in Europe are also embracing American and British musicals, including the Volksoper in Vienna, which has ramped up its musical repertoire with “Guys & Dolls” and “Kiss Me, Kate.” Other examples include Stephen Sondheim’s grand and ambitious “Follies” at Opéra de Toulon in France last year “Miss Saigon” at Malmo Opera in Sweden this season Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” at Goteborg Opera, also in Sweden and “South Pacific” and “Carousel” recently at Oper Graz in Austria. I don’t see doing ‘The Sound of Music’ with any less professionalism than in doing ‘La Traviata.”’ “I see it as an inherent part of our output. “The vast majority of musicals are not appropriate to opera companies, but there are a small number of titles that are enhanced by the skill and scale of an opera house,” said Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago. Musicals are drawing in audiences who have never attended a traditional opera - 50 percent of the audience at the recent Lyric Opera production of “Oklahoma!” were seeing their first production at the opera house - but also drawing the most jaded of opera-goers and symphony subscribers weary of yet another “Don Giovanni” or Beethoven’s Fifth.
By blurring the lines even further in a major opera company repertoire, the move hints at a turning point in how opera companies and symphonies stage American musicals alongside traditional blood-and-guts opera.Īs opera houses search for new works and new audiences - and, ultimately, new sources of income and guaranteed ticket sales - musicals may be a salvation and, most likely, a staple of future repertoires. LONDON - When the Chicago Lyric Opera approached the company controlling rights for Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals about staging their Big Five works, it might have quietly made history.
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