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So You Want to Produce
a Musical (3): The Role of the Music Director
By FRANK BEHRENS
ART TIMES
Sept, 2004
If
you have
been following this miniseries, you know we have already chosen our play and
our director. And remember, please, we ARE, you recall, talking about musicals.
I have seen the following situation really cause serious problems. A music director
will of course want the best VOICE for a particular role, while the stage director
might be thinking more of the ACTING aspects of the role. One might argue in
a musical that the VOICE is certainly paramount (consider the fat opera soprano
disputes at present) and that the musical director must prevail. On the other
hand, if the person involved sings fabulously but is totally without any stage
presence and cannot read lines, it would seem another actor had best be considered.
Maybe Joan Sutherland could get away with wooden acting, but Julie Andrews would
not have gotten far with that handicap.
In researching this aspect, I interviewed a vocal teacher
here in Keene, one JoAnne Mead, who has been music director to many a local
musical. Many times she found herself in harmony with, once or twice in conflict
with, the stage director. She says, start with the obvious. The MD should be
familiar with every note of the score and determine what kind of voice goes
best with each role, no matter how small it might be. At the auditions, she
looks for people who will fit those roles physically and vocally at both
ends of the scale.
In a musical, she maintains, the audience expects good
voices, not great acting. So when push comes to shove, the better singer but
poorer actor should get the role over a poor singer who can act well. The exceptions
to this rule would be Henry Higgins and Pickering, L’il Abner, and other
such “character” roles. Bloody Mary, for example, can be as crude
as can be; but she must sing “Bali H’ai” beautifully. Rose
in “Gypsy” must be a belter who can sustain that level all through
the show. (A singer might sound great at audition and fail badly during the
full performances.) Here a lovely voice is not right for the role. But in a
role such as Aldonza in “Man of La Mancha,” a trained voice is absolutely
necessary.
Once rehearsals start, the music director should insist
that the first two weeks at least be devoted entirely to the music. Since some
singers cannot read music, they must go over solos and choruses many times until
the notes become part of their thinking. This is also the time to stress enunciation
and projection. If they start by ignoring consonants, they are bound to do so
all through the performances. The chorus members should have fun during these
workouts. Especially difficult passages should be edited so they can all feel
comfortable with them.
JoAnne stresses that warm-up before each rehearsal should
not concentrate only on the scales. “You need word warm-up, animation
warm-up, range warm-up, breath warm-up, and agility (i.e. projection) warm-up.
Once the words are memorized, indeed even as they are
being memorized through repetition, basic acting skills should be emphasized.
All too often, amateur choruses sing deadpan, reacting to nothing but their
blocking. This is an area in which both stage and music director must agree.
Here I am thinking of a master class given by opera
director Jonathan Miller in which he staged a chorus from “Rigoletto”
in such a way that instead of sounding like a “singing telegram”
(as Miller put it) it sounded like they were giving the news not only to the
Duke but to each other too, nodding and agreeing that what they were saying
was true. In short, making things believable.
The question of miking the singers is a troublesome
one. Very few untrained—and far too many trained—singers can project
their voices and be understood. (Many cannot do either.) My correspondent believes
that miking should be a last resort. People want to hear human voices (regardless
of what electronic sounds Broadway gives them at $90 or $100 a shot) at a performance
and not a metallic substitute coming out of side speakers that also disguise
the location of the person on stage who is singing at that moment.
Of course, it happens that amateur groups (and professional
ones on tour too) wind up in venues far too large to fill with some or all of
the weak voices in the cast. If mikes are needed, for pity’s sake use
them judiciously and do not simply turn them up to “10” and let
it rip. (The Spinal Tap amplifiers, you will recall, went up to “11.”)
OK. You have the show, the stage director, the music director. Now the problem of choreography demands attention. It will get it next month.
