beggar’s opera

Quiz 5

Question (1)

The “beggar’s opera” was the famous ballad opera showed in Chestnut Street Theater, which was constructed in 1794.
A ballad opera refers to where an opera is set with popular musical tunes that people are familiar, set or interspersed with dialogue. Mostly, it is involved with the lower class people.
Today, a minstrel show would be called a variety show since it offers different kinds of entertainment.

Question (2)

Two main differences exist between musical comedy and operetta. Musical comedy takes the use of popular voice, while the operettas had a character of opera, but were shorter and with amusing characters. Another difference came from the different countries, where there was more emphasis on American values in the musical comedy. On the other hand, operettas emphasized more on the English and European subjects such as nobility, and kingships.
“The Black Crook” had a combination of three artistic arts, melodrama, music and dance.

Question (3)

Vaudevillistes were musicians from the streets who regularly visited boulevards in Paris for performances.

Question (4)

Best known American operettas include Victor Hebert, Rudolph Friml, and Sigmund Romberg.
Herbert came from Irish and German heritage, Friml was from Czechoslovakia, while was from Hungary.

Question (5)

Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story can be categorized as Musical.
This is because works that were produced after 1927 were considered musical, with the only difference in classification defining whether it was in the early 20^th century or late. It is classified using this method since it does not fit operetta or musical comedy.

Question (6)

The new practices used in Princess Theater by Jerome Kern were fitting the song to the story by starting with it instead of the other way round as usual. He sought to portray real American people easily identifiable to the Americans, thus Americanizing the show. Finally, due to having small stage, he was able to connect to the audience through performing directly to the audience and avoiding any exaggerated shows.
He also wrote the song about how music should sound, called “they did not believe me.” The new music is called mature musical.

Question (7)

A leitmotif is a song that is used severally in a play to show a certain character, situations, or even a certain theme.
For instance, a song could be used severally when the character is about to enter the stage.
I chose this example because it is one of its famous purposes in the musical theater.

Question (8)

Show Boat, 1936 movie is selected as a required movie to view because it was the first mature musical, thus showing the difference from the rest before more modifications were made. Another reason is its two scenes are properly put.
The video should be edited to give it more mature touch than before considering it still had a few elements of the previous operettas.

Question (9)

As the sheriff tries arresting Julie, she uses her friends to Steve, who cut the tip of her finger and sucks her blood as she falls on the bench.
The sheriff is distracted to get to them.
This prevented her arrest.

Question (10)

The olio scene is where the dance was performed to prepare the next scene, with a long speech.
The duck was used as a symbol.
The captain finished the scene on the Cotton Blossom by blowing a whistle.

Question (11)

Gershwin referred to Porgy and Bess as ‘folk opera because people, who are the folk had a large role to play.
Thompson being one of his supporters defended him by arguing that portraying a subject in the folklore was dependent on the artist of the work. On the other hand, Duke Ellington considered his portrayal of black people stereotypical and inappropriate. I think that Thompson was right, since any representation would depend on the artist.

Question (12)

Leontyne Price sings the Summertime song in bel canto. This is because she uses long phrases that are florid in order to show her powerful vocals.

Question (13)

Question (14)

The villain in Oklahoma is Laurey.
In the smokehouse, Curly leaves Jud after they have both fired shots upon disagreeing over who is to out with the girl.
The song sung in the smoke house is “Pore Jud is Daid.”

Question (15)

In his lyrics, Oscar Hammerstein does not use witty words and word play as other musical comedians. In addition, he used short verses that were focused on developing the story.
Oklahoma! was started with a dream episode unlike other musicals that started with a chorus.

Question (16)

Nightmare ballet sequence was used to develop the story and keep the audience entertain since they could concentrate from the beginning to the end.
This tells us that Laurey is like a dream girl, beautiful and charming.

Question (17)

By making the music portray to the Jewish life and modifying the traditional harmonies, he was able to capture Americans.
Fiddler on the Roof is about a Jew of early 20^th century in Russia when they were forced to immigrate after they started being killed.
‘Pogrom’ is a massacre of Jews where they were forced out of Russia and many were killed.

Question (18)

Walter Kerr critic on Company by Sondheim portrayed his work as not quite popular, and lacked the appeal to the audience. It also implies his works were new and not much acclaimed.
In the late 20^th century, American musical has declined. Most of it has been replaced with imported musical from Britain.

Question (19)

Organizing a Carnegie celebration requires having a group of musicians to perform songs written by Sondheim.
The celebration is meat to be a benefit concert featuring the American theater.
He performed the concert in 1992.

Question (20)

In this essay, I learnt that theater plays are of different kinds, with musical comedy, operettas, and opera.
Musicals and musical theater are supposed to be interesting and portraying a certain theme to the audience.
I prefer light comedy because of its witty lyrics.