Music - 20th and 21st Century Multimedia Forms part 2

• MUSICAL PLAY

  • a popular and generally lighter form of musical drama than the opera
  • themes are usually more contemporary, and the musical melodies more manageable by the average singer
  • acting is less intense and dramatic
  • The choreography and dance sequences provide visual breaks from the ongoing plots.
• Broadway musicals

  • family entertainment with themes and texts which are generally light and easy to understand
  • may include the problems of everyday life, such as love and romance, social acceptance, jealousy and intrigue, and adventure
  • singing is usually amplified, unlike the operatic quality of classically trained voices
• Several other musicals were adaptations of classical operas. Among these were Miss Saigon based on Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Aida from Verdi’s opera with the same title.
• While with the advent of technology, modern productions like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, and Lion King have enthralled audiences with amazing set designs, elaborate costumes, and computer-generated visual and sound effects.
• One Filipino artist who attained international status on both London’s West End and Broadway is Lea Salonga.
• Lea Salonga

  • best known for her portrayal of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon, a role for which she won the prestigious Tony Award for theater in the USA and the Laurence Olivier Award in London
  • .Salonga is the first Filipina to have won various international awards for a single role.
• Miss Saigon

  • a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr
  • a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, which also tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance wherein an Asian woman is abandoned by her Caucasian lover
• Following Miss Saigon, Salonga was the first Asian to play the role of Eponine in the musical Les Misérables, based on the novel of the same title written in 1862 by the French author Victor Hugo. She also played the role of Mei-Li in Flower Drum Song.
• The Phantom of the Opera

  • a broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe, with lyrics by Charles

  Hart and music by Lloyd Webber

  • based on the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
  • The story focuses on a beautiful singer Christine Daaé as she is seduced by a mysterious disfigured musical genius known as The Phantom of the Opera
• The Phantom of the Opera is one of the longest-running Broadway musicals of all time. At the 1988 Tony Awards, the

  Broadway production was nominated for 11 awards and won seven, including the coveted Best Musical award. The

  musical also won seven awards at the 1988 Drama Desk Awards.
• Les Misérables

  • known as “Les Mis,” is a musical composed in 1980 by French composer Claude-Michel Schönberg with

  libretto by Alain Boublil

  • based on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  • perhaps the most famous of all French musicals and one of the most famous musicals performed worldwide
  • tells the story of paroled convict Jean Valjean who, failing attempts to find work as an honest man, breaks his chains and conceals his identity to live his life again.
• MUSICAL PLAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

  In the Philippines, the musical play is a more recent development than Broadway and West End, relying mostly on

  adaptations from novels, literary works, or biographical sketches of famous artists.
• MUSICAL PLAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

  1. ANDRES BONIFACIO, ANG DAKILANG ANAK-PAWIS, THE MUSICAL
  2. ATANG - DULANG MAY MUSIKA
  3. Atang, The Musical
  4. KATY! THE MUSICAL
  5. FLORANTE AT LAURA, THE MUSICAL
  6. DARAGANG MAGAYON
  7. NOLI ME TANGERE, THE MUSICAL
  8. EL FILIBUSTERISMO, THE MUSICAL
  9. MAGSIMULA KA, THE MUSICAL