Fanfare for the Common Man – The Washington Ballet Click here to watch I was lucky enough to know and work with the great American composer Aaron Copland towards the end of his life and it was one of the seminal experiences of my professional life. Brooklyn born and initially self-taught, he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and emerged, during the 1930s and ‘40s as the essential American composer. The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. His most famous work, one that could reasonably be described by that overrused word ‘iconic’ is his Fanfare for the Common Man. Originally composed in response to the US entry into the Second World War, it was premiered on March 12, 1943 and was inspired by a speech made earlier that year by the American Vice President Henry A. Wallace, in which Wallace proclaimed the dawning of the "Century of the Common Man”. Copland later used the fanfare as the main theme of the fourth movement of his Third Symphony which he composed between 1944 and 1946. This short dance piece, choreographed by Silas Farley for Washington Ballet Dancer Gian Carlo Perez, captures the impressive beauty of the U.S Capital’s great Lincoln Memorial. The work was commissioned by the Washington Ballet to honour the Memorial’s 100th anniversary. The ballet is set to an outstanding archival recording of Copland’s Fanfare For The Common Man, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Aaron Copland himself. Tobias and the Angel – National Gallery Click here to watch As part of The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ex...,) 'Tobias and the Angel' by the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, is visiting three museums across the UK: Oriel Davies, The Beacon Museum and Carmarthenshire Museum. In this video, partners from each venue and from the National Gallery explore the history and meaning of this remarkable painting, and ask which famous pupil of Verrocchio might've contributed to the work. 🎞 Between Riverside and Crazy – Second Stage Theatre Click here for tickets Second Stage Theater is an enterprising New York theatre company that is taking the lead (for Broadway, at least) in this digital experiment of livestreaming a play that is simultaneously playing live on Broadway. For two weeks, from Jan 31, you can watch a new and highly acclaimed play live from the Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th St in Manhattan. The drawback for those of us who are not on the East Coast of the United States is that the showing is live, which means you will only be able to watch at the scheduled performance time, US Eastern Time. Most shows start at either 7pm or 8pm which is late for us on this side of the Atlantic, midnight or 1am. But don’t despair, if you choose one of the six matinee performances, which start at 2pm or 3pm ET, you can watch in Europe at a reasonable hour. I should warn you that it’s expensive. The tickets for the simulcast are a hefty $68. I think it's a pity Second Stage has decided to charge such a high price because this simulcast gives them a worldwide showcase for their work, a huge but unquantifiable benefit, and many readers will be put off by the ticket price. But if you feel like staying up late to watch an excellent play from New York, this would be the one as it has had rave reviews and is clearly worth seeing. Between Riverside and Crazy, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis, and directed by Austin Pendleton, is about a retired Black NYPD police officer (played by Stephen McKinley Henderson) who was shot while off duty by a white officer. We catch up with him eight years later, still holding out for a settlement and struggling to hold onto his Riverside Drive apartment. Jesse Green, the New York Times critic, wrote in his review that everyone should see it, “to experience the pleasure of a great cast making a shrimps-and-veal meal of the incredibly rich material, even as it flips between comedy and tragedy on its way to the truth in between.” I’m not sure exactly what he means by that but a ‘shrimps-and-veal meal’ sounds good to me whether he means it literally or metaphorically. Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical – Broadway On Demand Click here for 5-day rental. David Hasselhof made his Broadway debut in this longrunning camp musical. Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story of the epic battle between good and evil. It turns out that David Hasselhof can actually act which would have been hard to discern from his successful television life in Bay Watch. There are some good songs as you might expect from a score by composer Frank Wildhorn and writer/lyricist Leslie Bricusse. The show also stars Andrea Rivette and Coleen Sexton and was filmed live on the Broadway stage and directed by Robin Phillips. Rental is $9.99 and, after you start watching, you will have 120 hours to finish viewing the show. Moses Supposes and Make 'Em Laugh – Singin’ in the Rain Click here to watch Do you have a favourite moment from a movie musical? Some of my best evenings have been spent arguing with other fanatics about the ‘best’ numbers from our favourite movies. Almost everybody cites the title song and dance from Singin’ in the Rain and of course it is not over-doing it to call it ‘iconic’. But an evening spent in delightful bickering caused me to go back and watch the movie again, this time specifically to analyse the dancing. There’s a whole book to be written about Gene Kelly (wait a minute, didn’t I already write one?) but better still was his partner Donald O’Connor. Here they both are with Moses Supposes, a clever nonsense song in which the two friends torture their vocal coach. Note how in this number, O’Connor, the better dancer, and certainly the better comic, is constantly checking his position, glancing at Kelly, his partner, whereas Kelly, despite O’Connor’s considerable presence, is dancing with the camera. This was Kelly’s great contribution to the movie musical, that whereas Astaire performed with Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly taught the camera to dance and it was the camera that was his partner. With 'two-for-the-price-of-one' you can also find O’Conner’s breathtaking solo Make ‘Em Laugh on YouTube. This is perhaps the greatest comic dance number ever filmed and, if you like Moses Supposes, you’ll love Make Em Laugh. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SND3v0i9uhE). By the way, here’s a great story I just heard about Make Em Laugh. O’Connor, who died in 2003, was a heavy smoker and performing this number left him, not surprisingly, exhausted and short of breath. But there was a technical problem with the film and, tired as he was, this superlative pro had to do it all over again the following day. He won the Best Actor Golden Globe that year for this performance. Gene Kelly wasn’t even nominated. So what’s your favourite movie musical number? Let me know and if I can find it online I’ll put it on the Blog for you.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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