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It just occurred to me that Ann-Margret would be the ultimate best choice for this--she's a real musical comedy gal, just recently did 2 years of 'Best Little Whorehouse...' all over the country, and knows how to be bawdy. Oh yeah, she's much better than any of these other ladies for this, but she never gets major roles any more even though she's not too old. She can do Brit-talk too, as demonstrated in 'Return of the Soldier.' I'm not going to go see it if they don't give her the role though.

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They'll never dare. It's too bad, because it would be interesting to see her have a go.

papeetepatrick writes:

When I first saw 'Umbrellas' I thought it had not been dubbed, because they had chosen very well there, too, and not tried to get something that would emphasize formality or professionalism. They found a voice perfectly suited for exquisite young Deneuve.

The director, Jacques Demy, said they were also helped by not having to worry about speaking voices, as everything in “Umbrellas” was sung. But he did indeed work hard on that aspect, as he also did with “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” where it really does seem as if Deneuve and her sister and co-star, Françoise Dorléac, are doing their own singing. (Demy did less well with George Chakiris and Gene Kelly.)

Anthony_NYC writes:

Chenoweth would be a natural for Johanna, but I don't know how she is on screen (has she done any movies?).

I saw her in support of La Kidman in the ghastly Nora Ephron "Bewitched." She did well what she was called upon to do, which wasn't much. It would be interesting to see her in something more substantial.

bart writes:

I don't really have much to say about Sweeney Todd, being one of the few people on earth not to have enjoyed it in the two productions I've seen. (Though I was impressed by Lansbury.)

For me, it goes downhill after "A Little Priest."

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Wow I am bummed about Umbrellas. I always thought part of the charm was that the singers did not sound like professionals -- the soundtrack had a warbly, "regular people singing" quality that I loved. Still doesn't take away from my love for the movie, though.

I think, in general, that actors have a better time doing their own singing if they are not trying to imitate a specific person. For instance, Renee Zellwegger did fine as Roxie. It was not a great voice, but Roxie is not a star. But Joaquin Phoenix imitated all of Cash's mannerisms, but sang his songs in such a phonetic, monotone way that IMO he sucked the life out of the famous songs. Cash was inimitable. Witherspoon did better with June Carter because IMO June was a more generic singer. I mean, if there were ever to be a biopic on Billie Holliday, I sincerely hope that they do NOT have an actress try to imitate Holliday. That would be disastrous.

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For instance, Renee Zellwegger did fine as Roxie. It was not a great voice, but Roxie is not a star. .

But Roxie had been in the show, whether Gwen Verdon or Ann Reinking in the late 70's when I saw it, or Reinking in the 90's. I don't mean the character was a star, but rather this was the flashy role, or you don't start out with Verdon and end up with Reinking. I barely even remember the other characters. Since Reinking was truly the glamorous Broadway babe, and one of the best Fosse dancers ever, it was a real let-down to see someone so much plainer like Zellweger and who could not really dance. I didn't hear any real singing from any of them, including Ms. Zeta-Jones, who just seemed to be imitating a stereotyped chorine. They didn't use the Fosse choreography anyway, which was the only thing really worthwhile even about the original show, because the score is mediocre. The fuss about this movie stunned me, as if people had decided to go and see a musical film because it had brilliant editing. This was supposed to be a dance show.

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You are right in a sense, canbelto – Roxie isn’t talented, just as Sally Bowles, as Christopher Isherwood was at some pains to make clear, had NO talent whatsoever. But you're making a musical and the stars have to know their business.

I mean, if there were ever to be a biopic on Billie Holliday, I sincerely hope that they do NOT have an actress try to imitate Holliday. That would be disastrous.

There was – “Lady Sings the Blues” with Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, and Richard Pryor. It bore only a passing resemblance to any kind of reality, much less Holiday’s real life, but Ross was excellent and her singing was fine (although she couldn’t replicate the original's peculiar intensity) especially in lighter numbers like “Them There Eyes.”

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bart writes:
I don't really have much to say about Sweeney Todd, being one of the few people on earth not to have enjoyed it in the two productions I've seen. (Though I was impressed by Lansbury.)

For me, it goes downhill after "A Little Priest."

I don't like the show either! I love 'Company' as much as anything I've ever seen in the theater, and the original 'Follies' is marvelous. After that, I like bits and pieces of Sondheim, never the whole show, including 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I won't see the movie of it unless they cast it the way they won't.

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We're on the same wavelength about this, papeetepatrick. I also love a lot of earlier Sondheim up to Pacific Overtures and a bit beyond.

As for what happened later, I once heard someone say that Sondheim had turned himself, mid-career, into the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the intelligentsia. This seemed to me to have a bit of truth in it, though I don't think we have an intelligentsia any more, so I'm not quite sure what audience he was talking about. I do remember feeling a bit of resentment at the suggestion some folk make that, if you don't like the later works, you are somehow insufficiently highbrow.

Incidentally, I saw a performance of the re-done "Frogs" last season, done with a lot of choreography if not actual dance, and it was great theater, even though it didn't have the Yale pool.

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As for what happened later, I once heard someone say that Sondheim had turned himself, mid-career, into the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the intelligentsia. This seemed to me to have a bit of truth in it, though I don't think we have an intelligentsia any more, so I'm not quite sure what audience he was talking about. I do remember feeling a bit of resentment at the suggestion some folk make that, if you don't like the later works, you are somehow insufficiently highbrow.

That's very interesting you heard someone say this, because someone recently said the same thing to me about Sondheim, and I hadn't really thought of it that way. While I think that would be somewhat inevitable if Sondheim wanted to commercially viable enough to even occasionally get things produced that would work with fans and tourists too, it's perhaps a little like the ongoing debate about what to do about NYCB, and those of us who remember the freshest early 70's Sondheim can never be happy with a lot of what has happened since.

The 'insufficiently highbrow' is just the perfect kind of idiotic phrase some people would use for something that is beginning to show its decadence: That's why I mentioned 'Sunday in the park...' That flash into a New York art gallery opening is just awful, by 1984 it's like a hoary cobweb attempt to recapture what had been razor-sharp with Elaine Stritch in 'Company.' They're doing a big revival this season, but my personal feeling about 'Company,' (more than 'Follies') is that it so perfectly crystallized its Manhattan milieu of 1970 that it's one show that really was too perfect a period work to be able to revive well. Best example is 'Another Hundred People', which when I first heard Pamela Myers sing it in 1970 was like the most electric anthem for New York City right then at that moment that I was just spellbound. I still love to hear the record, but only that performance. To hear the song now is not to hear the song about the subways and the 'dusty fountains' and 'guarded parks', even if they are still there to the eye. The city itself has changed so that those images are placed into an entirely new context--and the life of 'look I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain' doesn't have any bite for today's New York. 'Follies' is somewhat different since it was already about something ghostly; but if you saw the original with Dorothy Collins and Alexis Smith and Yvonne DeCarlo (the last really is 'still here'), it itself takes on a ghostly secondary presence when you remember how gloriously Dorothy Collins sang in particular in 'Losing My Mind' and 'Too Many Mornings,' one of Sondheim's most beautiful songs, which she did with John McMartin. So that I think 'Follies' can be revived, but the previous attempts to do the same with 'Company' have had dismal results. I regret I didn't see 'Pacific Overtures', because I have heard praise for it over the years.

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[ ... ] what had been razor-sharp with Elaine Stritch in 'Company.' They're doing a big revival this season, but my personal feeling about 'Company,' (more than 'Follies') is that it so perfectly crystallized its Manhattan milieu of 1970 that it's one show that really was too perfect a period work to be able to revive well. Best example is 'Another Hundred People', which when I first heard Pamela Myers sing it in 1970 was like the most electric anthem for New York City right then at that moment that I was just spellbound.
Yes, like some of those 30s or 40s movies -- a perfect balance of style, language, pacing, with nice enough music. And, as with those movies, the world "Company" presents and comments on is indeed gone. You put in words qualities that were on my mind but I couldn't get a handle on. Thanks.

I love a great deal of "Follies," but there's so much STORY, and there's a tendency to overdo the production aspects. You need Big Glamour to do it, but the same Big Glamour has seamped both NYC productions I've seen, giving them more dead time and longueurs than the songs deserve.

I actually prefer the tv documentary about the preparation of the Lincoln Center semi-staged concert version (Carol Burnett, et al.) Maybe Follies, with its combination of great songs and overblown story, will survive better in edited concert performances rather than full productions -- not unlike the operas of Meyerbeer (IMO).

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Sondheim is highbrow in a Broadway context, middlebrow anywhere else, IMO.

That said, now we've REALLY wandered too far out of the paddock. By all means, discuss Sondheim, but let's stick closely to Sweeney Todd and bring in other works in that context. Thanks. :)

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The 'insufficiently highbrow' is just the perfect kind of idiotic phrase some people would use for something that is beginning to show its decadence

I perhaps need to make clear, although I think it was understood, that I wasn't referring to Bart's use of the term 'insufficiently highbrow', which is actually as precise as possible to describe that attitude that he was referring to, and that I was also referring to. I don't think the attitude appears until things start getting into a mannerist stage. Anyway, I was writing rather hastily, but that might have been misunderstood. I'd appreciate knowing if that was the case. Thanks.

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Sondheim is highbrow in a Broadway context, middlebrow anywhere else, IMO.

That said, now we've REALLY wandered too far out of the paddock. By all means, discuss Sondheim, but let's stick closely to Sweeney Todd and bring in other works in that context. Thanks. :)

I must respectfully say that that is what we were doing. We were comparing works of Sondheim that we thought were strong with 'Sweeney Todd' in particular and other late ones that we also liked less.

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Although it doesn't bother me now as much as it used to, Sondheim's self-loathing disguised as loathing of others can be really distateful. One of the reasons "Sweeney Todd" is, for me, one of Sondheim's best shows is that the gothic element of it is a perfect vehicle for his cynicism and misanthropy--it's an established part of the genre. It's also one of his musically richest and most ingenious scores. dirac, I myself find the second act is musically at least as good as the first. It begins with that amazing "God that's good" number in which multiple simultaneous events are set forth musically and dramatically fast and witty and still perfectly clear (which is part of what makes it funny)--a real high point for Sondheim. I also thing dramatically the show works great. In a good performannce it's really thrilling, especially as the vise begins to close during the second act. I can see it, in the right hands, being a gripping movie.

"Sweeney" is also a show that doesn't belabor it's theme, doesn't show off how it's "about" something. I agree somewhat about some of the later shows. Let's hope Sondheim never collaborates with Lapine again. Those heavy-handed books of his nearly sink "Sunday" and "Into the Woods." Nevertheless, I have to say that "Sunday" moved me to tears in places--it contains some of Sondheim's most personal music. Unfortunately, when they weren't singing one had to endure that dialogue with its sophomoric musings on Art. Just awful.

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Trying to stay on topic: the news of a Hollywood production of Sweeney Todd makes me sad about the decline of good teleproductions of stage versions, like the early-80s Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn. Something similar was done with Into the Woods (Bernadette Peters), though I can't remember if this was shot on stage or in a studio.

Both productions provided an excellent performance record and showed these works very well indeed -- not over-burdened with the over-production provided by special effects, marginally appropriate stars, and hyper-kinetic cameras.

PBS and other production companies have almost abandoned this kind of production. And when they do something along this line -- like the upcoming "Jewels," packed under the "Great Performances" brand -- the final product may or may not appear on the local public tv stations at all (it's up to them and the way the think about their local "market"), or may be delayed until a more convenient time (as Cliff reports elsewhere on BT that the Chicago public television station is doing).

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Well...PBS did broadcast "The Light in the Piazza" not too long ago. I'm sure there aren't as many such shows as there used to be, but I have the impression, which could be wrong, that broadcasts of theatrical shows appear far more regularly than dance programs. I agree that such broadcasts are valuable, but I also think that good translations to film are possible, if infrequent. I always liked the movie "Oliver!" and from what I understand it was an improvement on the stage original. There's room for improvement with "Sweeney Todd," too, and it could be terrific, if it has the right production. Of course, that's always a big 'if.' :clapping:

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I agree that such broadcasts are valuable, but I also think that good translations to film are possible, if infrequent. I always liked the movie "Oliver!" and from what I understand it was an improvement on the stage original.

I, too, love 'Oliver!' and we all know why it is so superior, although I also think Pauline Kael was all wrong to say that the Lionel Bart score is merely 'adequate.' The 'Who Will Buy?' sequence is so gorgeous alone it takes your breath away, but there are many good tunes. Some films have improved shows in some specific ways even if the whole is not greater than the original (in my experience it isn't usually, just as films are rarely better than the books they're based on.) I think this is the first Sondheim show except 'Little Night Music' to go to the screen (exluding 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy' with SS as lyricist). I definitely think 'Follies' would make a magnicent film if somebody really ambitious took it on.

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I think the one we've got to keep an eye on here is Burton. Ever since Ken Russell's memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons version of The Boy Friend, I've maintained a true cynicism about what directors can do to the plot of a musical. And considering what Burton did to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I do not maintain a sanguine outlook toward this sanguinary project. But at least, Sondheim is alive to protect his intellectual property. Washington Irving was somewhat past caring.

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Sweeny Todd made Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Tim Page's list in today's Washington Post.

20th-Century Music Gets a Bad Rap. Here Are 25 Reasons to Reconsider.

Beginning of article

Page with Sweeny Todd

Paige makes some legit points but even he makes mention of the dreaded term "opera". ST has often been treated as such, as have some other Sondheim pieces and I find this is almost always unsuccessfull. To me the key to making most Sondheim numbers work is a very precise, CLEAR, delivery of his words, tied to the rhythm very tightly. Few opera singers can do this reliably.

Of course in the film the issue of opera singers goes away, which is good but it still leaves the issue of

Sondheim requirement for "singing" his songs. Maybe a close parallel is Gilbert and Sullivan where again a

very precise delivery is needed and the music is there mostly to provide the framework.

Of course there are songs that need to be sung in a more conventional way in ST as in Follies, etc.

Richard

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Paige makes some legit points but even he makes mention of the dreaded term "opera". ST has often been treated as such, as have some other Sondheim pieces and I find this is almost always unsuccessfull. To me the key to making most Sondheim numbers work is a very precise, CLEAR, delivery of his words, tied to the rhythm very tightly. Few opera singers can do this reliably.
He did suggest the Original Broadway Cast album, though.
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Yes -- Sondheim isn't opera, he's pop music, Broadway division. His work has shown some classical influences, but that's where his roots are. (Sweeney Todd is routinely performed by opera companies these days, but that doesn't mean it should be.)

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(Sweeney Todd is routinely performed by opera companies these days, but that doesn't mean it should be.)

I'd say that it should be, even if I'm not crazy about it. 'Candide' is also performed and I think it should be, even though I'm at least crazy about the songs. But the main thing is that non-opera works like 'South Pacific' and 'the King and I' are done by opera companies too. I recall the old lecture Bernstein does in 'The Joy of Music' in which he makes a difference between light opera, operetta and musical comedy. This is not necessary to accept, but had some interesting observations about exoticism vs. native atmosphere. So that there are works that bridge all the gaps between all of the following (and anything I've left out): musical revue and numbers-musicals and musical comedy and operetta and light opera and lyric opera and grand opera and music drama. I begin to think that the distinction made between ballet and other dance forms is stricter than that which can be made between sung theater, although I'm not suggesting that 'Waikiki Weddding' and 'Das Rheingold' have anything even remotely in common.

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Paige makes some legit points but even he makes mention of the dreaded term "opera". ST has often been treated as such, as have some other Sondheim pieces and I find this is almost always unsuccessfull. To me the key to making most Sondheim numbers work is a very precise, CLEAR, delivery of his words, tied to the rhythm very tightly. Few opera singers can do this reliably.

Of course in the film the issue of opera singers goes away, which is good but it still leaves the issue of

Sondheim requirement for "singing" his songs. Maybe a close parallel is Gilbert and Sullivan where again a

very precise delivery is needed and the music is there mostly to provide the framework.

Of course there are songs that need to be sung in a more conventional way in ST as in Follies, etc.

Richard

I hadn't really made a connection between Sondheim and G&S, but I think you make a valuable point (having just seen a nice local production of Pirates I've been thinking about articulation lately)

Tangentially, does anyone here know off the top of their head if the singing parts in Mike Leigh's G&S film Topsy Turvey were dubbed, or did they cast actual singers?

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