How Can Anyone Who Loves Music Enjoy Musicals

[hermajesty]

You have set your mind that I am a troll and nothing I say can change that. I do not seem to be able to have an opinion on here but back to the subject, I agree with the report. You say you couldn't care less about my opinion so stop replying to my posts

[Jay Lerner-Z]

hermajesty, why do you always use "gay" as a pejorative?

[hermajesty]

Pejorative?

I am never that as I am gay myself

[henrikegerman]

Overall the piece itself is perfectly respectable as it explains why he doesn't like musicals and opera (and many people don't). It's the headline that's objectionable because it is completely unpersuasive and insulting to those who disagree with him (and many people do).

[PalJoey]

His essential premise is flawed:

The very idea of having people acting and then singing at the same time, and quite possibly dancing too, repels us.

People acting and singing at the same time--dancing, as well--has it roots in the most ancient of storytelling. It is as human as laughing or crying.

The way he employs the irritating British habit of speaking in the first person plural makes the rest of his column unreadable...to those of us who are intelligent appreciators of good writing and performing.

When British people speak in the "Royal We," Americans think they're pompous blowhards. When Americans fall into it, they just seem pretentious.

To quote some British queen, "We are not amused."

[GavestonPS]

Thank you, Joey. I too would find Mr. Sexton's argument more compelling if he seemed even vaguely aware that the "non-musical" is a mere blip on the timeline of theater history.

Or if he acknowledged that only European cultures split up music, dance and drama and sent them to separate buildings.

Or even if he noted that all art is based on conventions, even Naturalism. (No, Mr. Sexton, people in real life don't live their lives always facing the same wall or movie camera. You're just used to that convention.)

Or that Verdi and Puccini wrote the popular musicals of their eras.

Or that more contemporary opera composers (Bernstein, Weill) also wrote for the popular stage and yearned for Broadway hits.

[hermajesty]

To me Les Mis is the kings new clothes. Russell Crowe is mediocre as is Anne Hathaway. She just can't sing, a sweet soprano but struggles

[GavestonPS]

Among the hit European poperettas of the past 30 years, LES MIZ is my favorite. But that may be faint praise and disliking it is a matter of personal preference.

Complaining that actors sing and dance is just ignorant.

[hermajesty]

Yes it's my favourite too but with the right talented cast but the film unfortunately isn't cast correctly IMO

[Reginald Tresilian]

It's a breathtakingly stupid article. Stupid and poorly written--a master class in begging the question. "This art form I don't like is inferior because the ones I like are superior."

What's great music? Classical? Jazz? Baroque? R&B? Let's guess classical. So Salieri is inherently better than Gershwin? What's great drama? Anything wherein no one sings? So "Star-Spangled Girl" is automatically better than "Gypsy"?

And hermajesty, I know you say you're gay, but are you truly unaware that you attempted to use it now as an insult?

[hermajesty]

In your opinion Reg. Stop being judgemental.

[GavestonPS]

It's a breathtakingly stupid article. Stupid and poorly written--a master class in begging the question. "This art form I don't like is inferior because the ones I like are superior."

Indeed, and how interesting that Sexton compares LES MIZ to grand opera! Has he listened to Top 40 radio lately?

[Reginald Tresilian]

Hermajesty, if you are sincerely saying you didn't toss "gay" into your description of Jordan with the hope of wounding him, then I sincerely apologize.

[SporkGoddess]

"People who love musicals — and we have to confront the gruesome fact that there are such people, 60 million of them having paid to see Les Misérables on stage around the world — don’t care so much. They just want to be pumped up with emotion by any means, lacking perhaps any interior life of their own."

Pfft, those plebes and their wanting music to inspire "emotion" in them. That's not what music is for!

[Kad]

Wait, hermajesty- you totally agree with the article? So you hate musicals and don't really understand how anyone can enjoy them?



The article, as Joey and Reg have pointed out, is not only idiotic- but patently insulting.

But I suppose I'd rather have no interior life than have one as miserable as Sexton's.

[WestEndAndy]

There are some very stupid, self-satisfied, opinionated people out there and some of them are critics.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I have quite the dark and twisted interior life.

[aaronb]

Those of us who don't like musicals deserve a better, less condescending voice.

[DEClarke]

Hermajesty, I'd like to point out that Jordan and I disagree on this board (i.e. I think Daphne Rubin-Vega has not aged well.). Yet, I have never been called a troll. So, your argument that he calls you a troll just because you disagree is not valid.

[PTOPhan]

Ladies and gentlemen, name-calling takes a lot of time and bandwidth that could be better used for calling third parties names, such as the critic who wrote the article under discussion. [JUST KIDDING AROUND.] For the record, I don't think "gay" should have pejorative connotations, but, unfortunately, some people use it that way. As far as calling someone a "troll," I'm not sure that anyone who seriously wants to discuss theater is really a troll, even if they try to rile people up. I tend to think of "trolls" as people who hang around boards to which they have no connection or interest for the sole purpose of insulting or annoying people --for example, calling people "libtards" on a left-oriented site or hurling anti-Semitic epithets on a Jewish board. Just my two cents.

[Kad]

If they seriously wish to discuss theatre, then they can't also want to just rile people up.