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Katie-chan  Broadway Legend
Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Total posts: 827 Location: Florida, USA Current obsession: Bye Bye Birdie, Sweeney Todd |
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I always knew there was a big difference between Broadway and European musicals, but I haven't really been able to put it into words - thanks, Michael Kunze, for doing it for me!
| Quote: | "The dramamusical is a tool to make clear that this is not a typical Broadway-type musical, which is more a musical-comedy. In what I do, we do drama with music. The way I write the shows is that I basically write the drama, of course with the music in mind, but the music is something that comes next, like a movie. The music is a very important element, but the most important element of the drama is the story, so the music really serves the story, and the music doesn't really have a right in its own beside the story, like a number that is just made for the music and the dance. [...]
I just want to distinguish where theatre is more theatrical than in a classical Broadway musical which is based on the vaudeville tradition, on dance, on spectacular things happening, and this is not what I look for. I believe in drama as the key entertainment in theatre, and I think I'm not the only one who does. [...]
I just think it's more European because I think the tradition of opera with the highly dramatic stories lent more to that kind of art-form, and I think that also our audiences in Europe, and I really include here in England, are more interested in going to theatre and have a real theatrical experience, a real emotional experience at last, not just an entertaining evening, but something they can discuss after the show."
http://westend.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW_INTERVIEWS_Writer_And_Interpreter_Michael_Kunze_20091002 |
Discuss! 
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Brother Marvin Hinten, S.Broadway Legend
Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Total posts: 1212 Location: Warwick, Rhode Island Primary role: Producer Current obsession: Tanz der Vampire |
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In other words, Europe traditionally favors darker stories, more intellectual and thought-provoking entertainment, and by comparison Broadway is. usually..well, less so inclined, to put it politely. This is not to say that either haven't ever gone the total opposite direction, but basically yeah, that's how it rolls.
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Mistress Broadway Legend / MdN Veteran
Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Total posts: 2472 Location: If you care to find me, look to the western sky...or just look in Toronto Primary role: Fan Current obsession: Elisabeth das Musical and Rebecca das Musical XD |
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I have to agree. If you look at some of the biggest hits over there, that aren't translations of Broadway shpws, you have Elisabeth, Rebecca, and Tanz der Vampire, which are all darrk shows. Tanz is more dark humour than the others, but you only need to see the Broadway adaption to see that is, in fact, dark. And, ironically, it seems that Frank Wildhorn, that bane of Broadway, has in fact been quite successful in Germany (Fur Immur Jung from Dracula actually sounds rather pretty) with his darker shows like Dracula, and Rudolf (which I guess can be tacked on to Elisabeth, despite the different composers)
Elisabeth is a very interesting example as well. It bares many similarities to Evita, mainly the use of a cynical, adversarial narrarator. But I think Elisabeth has a dark eroticism that Evita lacks. Evita is realistic, Elisabeth is anything but, with it's romantic/erotic relationship between the title character and Death, which spans the entire show. We don't get too much of this here. Our Vampires are slapstick, are Romance clean and warm, and are musicals either funny, angsty or just simple fun (not that I don't like Broadway-I do-I'm just stating some of the recent trends, mainly the angst-of-life trend that has been most recent along with jukebox band musicals and movie adaptions that are getting increasingly ambitious and out there). We haven't quite warmed up to this German/European idea of the "dramamusical".
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dolbinauBroadway Legend
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Total posts: 1623 Location: Australia Primary role: Musician Current obsession: Ragtime, Carrie. |
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| Quote: | | In other words, Europe traditionally favors darker stories, more intellectual and thought-provoking entertainment, and by comparison Broadway is. usually..well, less so inclined, to put it politely. This is not to say that either haven't ever gone the total opposite direction, but basically yeah, that's how it rolls. |
Really?
Ok, ignoring perhaps Shakespeare I believe the opposite. Broadway has all the thought-provoking, high quality shows....everything that comes from Europe in recent times (ALW shows, Chess, Tanz Der Vampire, Elton John etc..) are very expensive pop-orientated/mega-musical style shows.
I guess this ignores the shows that stay over in the west-end and don't come here, but since this guy is talking about/involved in such shows as ALW, AIda I don't think he is necessarily talking about spectacular unknown shows.
People have a perception of American movies as overproduced, very commercialised etc... while european the opposite, but in terms of Musicals I have an opposite perception of America.
Though of course Broadway certainly and in the last 10 years especially has had very commercialised/megamusical style shows. But I kind of get the impression this was imported from Europe.
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Katie-chanBroadway Legend
Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Total posts: 827 Location: Florida, USA Current obsession: Bye Bye Birdie, Sweeney Todd |
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| dolbinau wrote: | | Quote: | | In other words, Europe traditionally favors darker stories, more intellectual and thought-provoking entertainment, and by comparison Broadway is. usually..well, less so inclined, to put it politely. This is not to say that either haven't ever gone the total opposite direction, but basically yeah, that's how it rolls. |
Really?
Ok, ignoring perhaps Shakespeare I believe the opposite. Broadway has all the thought-provoking, high quality shows....everything that comes from Europe in recent times (ALW shows, Chess, Tanz Der Vampire, Elton John etc..) are very expensive pop-orientated/mega-musical style shows. |
Did you know Tanz der Vampire was butchered when it came to Broadway?
| Quote: | The show was extensively rewritten for the New York/Broadway production, which starred Michael Crawford (the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera in the 1980s, which incidentally also starred Steve Barton, the original von Krolock) as von Krolock and was directed by Urinetown's John Rando (without Polanski). [...]
The producers of the show wanted a rewrite with a more comic angle instead of adapting the successful Austrian version, so they hired comic playwright David Ives to write what amounted to a new book, which was then revised and rearranged by Crawford, who had creative control. Crawford also agreed that the piece should be a comedy on the lines of Mel Brooks. The result was an altered version with a lot of campy humor that differed considerably from the original show.
The humor received some laughter and much criticism. After Steinman was fired from the show by his own manager (acting as lead producer) for protesting the direction the show had taken, the English version (of necessity) borrowed a lot of new material from Steinman's lyrics for the previous English versions of his songs. The show was critically lambasted, the work of lead performer Michael Crawford being reviewed particularly harshly.
Dance of the Vampires is one of the biggest financial flops in Broadway history, losing roughly $12 million, easily eclipsing the infamous musical Carrie. Steinman made a show of his disapproval of the project by not attending opening night. In his blog, Steinman described this show as "DOTV, which you guys know I hated & was disgusted by, & was FIRED by my manager, acting as producer!" The manager to whom he was referring was David Sonenberg, who was one of the producers of the show and Steinman's longtime manager. On his blog, Steinman wrote "DOTV as we know was UTTER SHIT!" in one post, and describes the production as a "shit pile" in another. He stated in other blog entries that his music was "wasted" on the show, and was careful to make a clear distinction between the Broadway 2002-2003 version (referred to as DOTV) and the successful European version (referred to as Tanz).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_the_Vampires#Broadway |
This is a really good example for the difference between Broadway and European musicals, I think. "Oh, this musical was so successful in Europe, let's take it to Broadway - but wait, our American audience might not understand its dark humour and be bored by its seriousness, so let's just rewrite it as some kind of pathetic musical comedy. ... Oh, it flopped? Well, that's probably because the original musical sucked anyways."
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Canadian Drama Geek Off-Broadway Lead Joined: 17 Aug 2009 Total posts: 214 Location: Kingston Ontario Primary role: Performer Current obsession: French and German musicals, anyone who's played Der Tod in 'Elisabeth', and the Takarazuka Revue |
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Yup, I'm going to put my own two cents in.
I agree with Dolbinau on a lot of counts.
I really don't think that there's a difference between the two. In fact, I think that European musicals are derivative of Broadway/West End musicals. This is why.
In the last forty/thirty years, musical theatre in the English speaking world started to change for the more operatic. I think this is due to the rock opera movement and Sondheim, closely followed by the stylings of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's around this time (late seventies' to early eighties') that the music in Broadway/West End musicals really started serving the purpose of the book (as well as reflecting the style of the time, which, it could be argued, is what operas did at the tme of their inception).
I think that it was only later that the rest of Europe, apart from Britain, caught on. Claude-Michel Schonberg stated in an interview with Seth Rudetsky (I think it was that interview), that when he was writing Les Miserables, he drew heavily from the execution of Jesus Christ Superstar. It was also in this interview that he said if he had had the chance to write Les Mis again, he would have taken what's perceived as a very Lloyd Webber thing to do- He would have recycled his melodies a little more. (as if he didn't do it enough in Les Mis...  ).
It was with Les Mis (late eighties') that European musical theatre really began to happen. Before that, I think we'd have been hard-pressed to find a musical, excluding anything British or anything that involves chess pieces, that had its conception in Europe. Watch me be corrected soundly on this point...
However, I can trace this whole recycling of the melodies thing to Wagner, when he started a convention that is considered as a very Wagnerian thing to do- the leit motif, which is the act of using a musical phrase (or in some cases, a part of a song) repeatedly as a way to convey an emotion that a certain character is feeling. This can be found in operas even before Wagner's time, though. Recall Carmen and the 'fate motif'...
So, if you could follow me at all... I need to work n getting my thoughts wel-organized...
I think that Broadway had already started doing dark, thought-provoking musicals that were a little inspired by traditional opera at least ten years before Europe came into the picture (Sondheim in the sixties', people? Help me out!), and it was because of this that we have Elisabeth, Tanz Der Vampire, and Rebecca. Indeed, the fact that Frank Wildhorn is popular in Germany should be an indication of this.
I'm not going to get into mega-musicals, commercialization, or any of that. I think everyone, regardless of hemisphere, is equally guilty of the mega-movie-musical, though Broadway definitely attracts the most attention when it comes to that sort of thing.
And I think that we should all remember that the biggest atrocity ever to grace the stage for more than five years, Mamma Mia! is based on a Swedish group's music. 
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In Rehearsal: Anthony Hope in Sweeney Todd.
Last edited by Canadian Drama Geek on Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dolbinauBroadway Legend
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Total posts: 1623 Location: Australia Primary role: Musician Current obsession: Ragtime, Carrie. |
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(This is a response to Katie-Chan)
Well let's remove that counterexample then..we still have all the other examples. (I don't know much about that particular show so I won't make a strong claim that the original production sucked, even though from what I heard in terms of cast recordings that would be my initial impression).
Does that change anything though?
Would you guys really say that Les Miz, Phantom, JCS, Chess, Aida etc.. are 'darker' shows that are more intellectual and 'thought-provoking' than Broadway shows in general?
| Quote: | | - but wait, our American audience might not understand its dark humour and be bored by its seriousness, so let's just rewrite it as some kind of pathetic musical comedy |
That's funny since the 'English audience' did not 'get' Sweeney Todd when it went over there.
BROADWAY has:
SONDHEIM- A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Company, Follies etc..
Plus 'classic' musicals such as My Fair Lady, Gypsy, West Side Story..
'EUROPE' has:
ALW - Phantom, JCS, Evita, Cats etc..
Chess, Les Miz etc..
I'm not saying that European shows are 'bad' or anything, but come on look at the difference here. THe European shows are the relative fluff/cheese/low quality, not Broadway. The Legacy of Broadway shows are of higher quality, 'intellectual superiority' while European in comparison more commercial/fluffier/poppier/expensiver [] /easier entertainment
| Quote: | | I'm not going to get into mega-musicals, commercialization, or any of that. I think everyone, regardless of hemisphere, is equally guilty of the mega-movie-musical, though Broadway definitely attracts the most attention when it comes to that sort of thing. |
Mmm I don't want that to be the main part of what I'm trying to say, because all Broadway shows unless non for profit are commercial ventures. I'm just saying if we look at an overall 'impression' of a show, the shows that are generally associated with being mega-musical 'blockbusters', with pop/rock-orientated accessible scores etc.. is from the European scene.
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Last edited by dolbinau on Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DvargBroadway Legend / MdN Veteran
Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Total posts: 3653 Location: Norway Primary role: Fan Current obsession: Sondheim! |
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That is some of the stupidest I've read.
The only thing dumber is using Frank Wildhorn's success in Europe to prove it 
His shows are the most stupid shows there are.
I'm in general very critical towards glorifying the US, but:
| dolbinau wrote: | BROADWAY has:
SONDHEIM- A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Company, Follies etc..
Plus 'classic' musicals such as My Fair Lady, Gypsy, West Side Story. |
Plus Rodgers and Hammerstein basically invented the serious musical.
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Last edited by Dvarg on Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Canadian Drama GeekOff-Broadway Lead Joined: 17 Aug 2009 Total posts: 214 Location: Kingston Ontario Primary role: Performer Current obsession: French and German musicals, anyone who's played Der Tod in 'Elisabeth', and the Takarazuka Revue |
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Definitely Europe seems to tend towards that a bit more, Dolbinau, but maybe we perceive it that way because Western audiences are only exposed to what European shows marketers think they'll enjoy and therefore pay to go see.
Shows written by Lloyd Webber and Elton John definitely would get priority over the shows that might be superior/more artistically genuine that get written, but aren't by anyone well-known. I'm sure the same thing happens in Europe in relation to Broadway shows.
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| Mama Rose Joined: 12 Jul 2009 Total posts: 43 Primary role: Performer |
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Wow, soooooo much misinformation on this thread. You'd think that some of the people here have never heard of a musical before Les Miz.
| Quote: | | Before that, I think we'd have been hard-pressed to find a musical, excluding anything British or anything that involves chess pieces, that had its conception in Europe. Watch me be corrected soundly on this point... |
I suppose that the Threepenny Opera, The Boy Friend and countless works by Noel Coward and Weill & Brecht must be non-existent...
| Quote: |
It's around this time (late seventies' to early eighties') that the music in Broadway/West End musicals really started serving the purpose of the book (as well as reflecting the style of the time, which, it could be argued, is what operas did at the tme of their inception). |
...musicals started serving the purpose of the book in the 1920s with Show Boat.
| Quote: | | In other words, Europe traditionally favors darker stories, more intellectual and thought-provoking entertainment, and by comparison Broadway is. usually..well, less so inclined, to put it politely. This is not to say that either haven't ever gone the total opposite direction, but basically yeah, that's how it rolls. |
Les Miz and Miss Saigon "thouht-provoking"? Compared to Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe and Stephen Sondheim?
With the exception of Weill & Brecht and Noel Coward... the Europeans pretty much suck at musical theatre. at least in my opinion.
Last edited by Mama Rose on Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Canadian Drama GeekOff-Broadway Lead Joined: 17 Aug 2009 Total posts: 214 Location: Kingston Ontario Primary role: Performer Current obsession: French and German musicals, anyone who's played Der Tod in 'Elisabeth', and the Takarazuka Revue |
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Thanks Mama Rose. My history is a little shabby. I suppose it was serving to my purpose to write that, wasn't it?
EDIT- Though I strongly disagree on the Europeans being bad at musical theatre. I personally love it. To each their own, no?
But, for lulz, here's a really good example on how bad the Europeans can get on this, just to counteract the Tanz der Vampire example of how badd the North Americans can be:
In 1958, Bernstein and Sondheim wrote one of the greatest musicals of all time, West Side Story.
In 2001, Gerard Presgurvic drew from the same material and wrote one of the most artistically barren adaptations of Shakespeare, ever. Romeo et Juliette. Catchy tunes, but still... definite wtfery.
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Currently: Jet Girl and Somewhere soloist in West Side Story
In Rehearsal: Anthony Hope in Sweeney Todd.
Last edited by Canadian Drama Geek on Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Katie-chanBroadway Legend
Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Total posts: 827 Location: Florida, USA Current obsession: Bye Bye Birdie, Sweeney Todd |
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| Mama Rose wrote: | | the Europeans pretty much suck at musical theatre. |
Shock!
Okay, I guess what I wrote in the first post is mainly true for 2009, not 1900 - 2009. Just look at the popular shows we have on Broadway right now: tons of movie adaptions, jukebox musicals...
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