Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

John Snelson writes, “in the West End, the opening of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 marked the start of a continuous presence of Lloyd Webber shows through to the time of writing [2004]; often during that span there have been four concurrent Lloyd Webber shows, and in both 1991 and 1997 six were playing simultaneously.”6

… versus Critical Acclaim

Before the first edition of Enchanted Evenings was published in 1997, the only serious Lloyd Webber biography to appear was Michael Walsh’s biographically thorough, generally sympathetic, non-technical Andrew Lloyd Webber: His Life and Works (1989, revised and enlarged 2nd ed., 1997).7 In The Broadway Musical (1990; revised and expanded 2nd ed., 2002), Joseph P. Swain devoted a highly critical chapter to Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.8 Before the end of the 1990s serious Broadway scholarship was still the exception to the rule, but a number of books, dissertations, and journal articles on Sondheim had already appeared, including Stephen Banfield’s comprehensive analytical study Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals (1993). A journal devoted exclusively to Sondheim, The Sondheim Review, was launched in 1994. In recent years at least three full essay collections on Sondheim have appeared in addition to major scholarly and analytical attention to Sondheim in books, journals, courses and seminars, papers and even whole sessions of papers at musicological conferences, and substantial parts of more general books in the field. Readers have come to expect more than a “cursory mention” (see the quotation that opened this chapter) on Sondheim when they pick up a survey of the Broadway musical.

On the other hand, in a situation similar to the relatively sparse attention given Puccini in comparison with Verdi and Wagner, serious study of Lloyd Webber, including recent scholarship, “is conspicuous by its absence” (also quoted from the opening of the chapter). The second edition of Steven Suskin’s Show Tunes (1991) included a section called “Notable Imported Shows.” About half of the shows listed were shows with music by Lloyd Webber. In the Preface to the third edition Suskin justifies the omission of this section and the expunging of Lloyd Webber that resulted: “All of the British imports since the Second Edition have failed; thus, I have seen fit to excise the import section and concentrate on matters of more interest.”9 As a consequence of this executive decision, the most popular Broadway composer of the last thirty years and probably in history is now banished from a major reference book that purports to cover “The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers.” In his critical remarks on Maury Yeston’s excellent version of Phantom, which was performed to some acclaim by Houston’s Theater of the Stars in 1991, Suskin compares the work favorably with its vastly better known predecessor: “Yeston’s score is actually far more tuneful than you-know-who’s.”10 Even the identity of “you know who” remains securely hidden, a phantom of the musical theater.

Of the thirty-eight Broadway musicals explored in Raymond Knapp’s two-volume survey of the American musical and musical film, seven feature shows by Sondheim and only one considers a show by Lloyd Webber (Evita).11 Although Knapp notes that not everyone shares a negative view and offers dramatic reasons behind Lloyd Webber’s reuse of melodic material, the disparity in emphasis nonetheless speaks for itself and reveals a stronger interest in Sondheim. Of the thirty-four shows discussed in Scott Miller’s three volumes of essays, eight are devoted to works by Sondheim, only one by Lloyd Webber (the early Jesus Christ Superstar).12 Ethan Mordden, who devotes from four to fourteen pages each to nearly every Sondheim show in his seven-volume survey, dismisses Lloyd Webber through sharp criticism but mainly through neglect. In fact, among all of Lloyd Webber’s output, only Jesus Christ Superstar, according to Mordden, demonstrates meaningful dramatic correlation between theme and characters (and consequently merits two pages).

Despite relative inattention in mainstream surveys, the past few years have witnessed serious studies on Lloyd Webber musicals that combine biographical, critical, and analytical commentary, especially John Snelson’s Andrew Lloyd Webber (2004) and Jessica Sternfeld’s The Megamusical (2006).13 Both Snelson and Sternfeld are sympathetic to their subject and offer spirited defenses of Lloyd Webber against his many critics. For the most part, however, authors who devote some attention to Lloyd Webber characteristically treat significant elements of his shows, if not the composer himself, with undisguised disdain. Some of these studies minimize—they can’t ignore—Lloyd Webber’s achievement and attribute the staggeringly popular success of his shows, and other overblown megamusicals, merely to stagecraft and media hype.14 Another commonly voiced criticism of Lloyd Webber shows, even in writings that are largely positive—for example, Stephen Citron’s double study of Lloyd Webber and Sondheim in 2001—are aimed at what is perceived as generic and otherwise sub-par lyrics, especially those written by lyricists who have come after Evita, when Rice and Lloyd Webber parted ways.15 On the whole, the overwhelming critical assessment of Lloyd Webber so far consists of high marks for stagecraft, spectacle, and popular success, and low marks for artistic craft, inspired originality, and general overall esteem.

Borrowing and the Organically Overgrown Megamusical

Two controversial issues have long haunted the musicals of Lloyd Webber: (1) his common practice of musical borrowing from other composers; and (2) allegations of excessive reuse of his own music within a musical. Neither issue is unique to Lloyd Webber. Virtually all composers, including Broadway composers, borrow from other musical sources. Composers in the classical tradition from Handel, Bach, and Mozart to Stravinsky and Ives have used previous music frequently and with great originality and craft for centuries, a force that prompted eighteenth-century theorist Johann Mattheson to pronounce that “borrowing is permissible, but one must return the object borrowed with interest.”16 The problem is that Lloyd Webber is often accused of borrowing without paying interest. Since the days of Sigmund Romberg it would be difficult to produce a Broadway composer who has so blatantly been accused of plagiarism, several steps beneath borrowing.17 Similarly, in regard to the second controversy, all composers surveyed in this volume reuse material and reprise songs