For your listening pleasure......


MARIE CHRISTINE: A New Musical. Words and Music by MICHAEL JOHN LaCHIUSA


 

THE neon sign in front of the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center calls Michael John LaChiusa's ''Marie Christine'' ''a new musical.'' So do all the posters. Whether or not Mr. LaChiusa specifically requested that the show be advertised in this way, there can be little doubt that he approves, since he recently wrote an essay for Arts & Leisure in which he firmly stated that ''Marie Christine'' was a musical, not an opera.

Now, Mr. LaChiusa can call ''Marie Christine'' anything he wants: it's his show. But I have seen it twice, one time with Audra McDonald in the title role and the other with her alternate, Sherry Boone (whose first-rate performance, incidentally, disproved the widespread notion that ''Marie Christine'' is nothing without its star). On both occasions, I came away certain that it was an opera -- and that the author's claims to the contrary were doing him a disservice.

To be sure, neither genre is easy to define. Though ''Tristan und Isolde'' is definitely an opera and ''Annie Get Your Gun'' a musical, much of what comes in between is up for grabs. French opera-comique and German Singspiel, for example, both have spoken dialogue and songlike arias. Oscar Hammerstein II rewrote the libretto of ''Carmen,'' the quintessential opera-comique, and successfully brought it to Broadway as ''Carmen Jones''; Mr. LaChiusa himself sees ''The Magic Flute,'' a Singspiel generally regarded as among the highest and most profound expressions of the operatic ideal, as a ''prototype'' for the modern musical.

But ''Carmen'' and ''The Magic Flute,'' different though they are from ''Tristan,'' also have something essential in common with it: they are scores, unified musico-dramatic structures whose separate parts serve a larger theatrical end. ''Annie Get Your Gun,'' by contrast, is a play with free-standing songs, nearly all of which can be sung on their own. And while the arias of Bizet and Mozart are fully as hummable as Irving Berlin's songs, they aspire to a higher level of technical sophistication and emotional intensity.

What about ''Marie Christine''? My guess is that about two-thirds of it is sung, and much of the spoken dialogue is accompanied by the orchestra. Of the 35 musical numbers, only one, ''Way Back to Paradise,'' is a self-contained song that ends with a clean break for applause. The harmonic language is often quite dissonant, at least by the prevailing standards of American popular music. And as if all that weren't enough to give the game away, ''Marie Christine'' is a tragedy without a trace of Hammersteinian uplift. (As Bugs Bunny says in ''What's Opera, Doc?,'' ''What didja expect in an opera -- a happy ending?'')

Why, then, is Mr. LaChiusa unwilling to call his creation by its right name? Because he doesn't want it to be an opera. In his essay, he claims that opera is ''elitist'' and unrepresentative of America's ''mongrel culture.'' He goes so far as to define opera as ''what Europeans used to write'' (except, presumably, for Mozart). But he is tilting at a straw man. His main objection to the genre turns out to be that ''the 'pure' sound that classically trained American singers strive for is essentially Eurocentric.''

''It's blasphemy to even suggest it,'' he added, ''but why can't opera singers combine vocal styles?'' The answer, of course, is that many of the younger ones -- Bryn Terfel, Anne Sofie von Otter, Sylvia McNair and Dawn Upshaw among them -- have been doing it for years. Ms. McDonald is a classically trained soprano whose method of vocal production is ''Eurocentric,'' yet it doesn't stop her from singing Mr. LaChiusa's bluesy melodies with thrilling conviction.

THE key word here is ''elitist.'' Mr. LaChiusa, who admits to having had to pawn his piano after writing ''Marie Christine,'' clearly longs to be popular. Alas, he longs in vain. Broadway today is about ''Beauty and the Beast'' and ''Footloose,'' not complex scores that demand your full attention at all times. To call ''Marie Christine'' a musical is implicitly to claim that it has more in common with these simple-minded shows than ''Carmen.'' Not only is this untrue, it's bad marketing, the equivalent of a bait-and-switch scam. Labels are unfashionable these days, even politically incorrect, but sometimes they still matter. Had ''Marie Christine'' been billed as ''a new opera'' and produced by, say, Glimmerglass Opera, it would have drawn a different, more adventurous kind of audience, one better prepared to grapple with its challenging blend of pop-flavored rhythms and prickly harmonies.

Mr. LaChiusa is not the only opera composer who insists that he's writing musicals. Stephen Sondheim continues to do the same thing, ignoring the increasingly obvious fact that his best work belongs in opera houses. Chicago's Lyric Opera recently announced that it would produce ''Sweeney Todd'' in 2002, with Bryn Terfel in the title role. I couldn't be happier; I think it's one of the finest operas composed by an American. So is Adam Guettel's ''Floyd Collins,'' a post-Sondheim show whose expressive ambitions place it far beyond the constricting ambit of the contemporary musical. And so is ''Porgy and Bess,'' a masterpiece that never truly came to life until opera companies embraced it.

Is ''Marie Christine'' worthy of being produced alongside these works? I believe so -- but we'll never know for sure until Michael John LaChiusa shakes off his morbid fear of being branded an elitist and allows it to be marketed as the excellent opera that it is.

A 'Musical' That's Really An Opera By Terry Teachout. New York Times, Jan. 2, 2000




Brand New, Sealed and Never Opened!


Michael John LaChiusa ‎– Marie Christine - A New Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
Label: RCA Victor ‎– 09026-63593-2
Format: CD, Album 
Country: US
Released: 2000
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style:
 
TRACKLISTING:

Prelude: A Prison
1 Before The Morning 3:14
2 Mamzell' Marie 1:43
3 Your Grandfather Is The Sun 1:45

Act One: 1894
4 Beautiful 1:44
5 In An Instant 1:30
6 Way Back To Paradise 2:33
7 When You Look At A Man 0:26
8 The Storm 2:45
9 C'est L'Amour / To Find A Lover 4:18
10 Nothing Beats Chicago / Ocean Is Different 2:48
11 Danced With A Girl 3:31
12 Tout Mi Mi / He Is My Release 0:42
13 Miracles And Mysteries 2:39
14 I Don't Hear The Ocean 2:53
15 Bird Inside The House 1:23
16 We're Gonna Go To Chicago 2:52
17 And You Would Lie / I Will Give 3:00
18 Act I Finale Percussion [Solo] – David Pleasant 4:01

Act Two: 1899
19 Cincinnati 3:34
20 You're Looking At The Man 2:45
21 The Scorpion 2:21
22 Lover, Bring Me Summer 1:39
23 Tell Me 2:56
24 Billy Was Sweet / Paradise Is Burning Down 3:17
25 Prison In A Prison 2:24
26 Better And Best 1:10
27 Good Looking Woman 2:44
28 No Turning Back / Before The Morning (reprise) 3:42
29 Beautiful (reprise) 2:03
30 I Will Love You 2:35
31 Your Name 2:29
32 Finale-Innocence Dies 2:02


CREDITS:

Composed By – Michael John LaChiusa
Conductor – David Evans
Orchestrated By – Jonathan Tunick
Vocals [Dante Keyes] – Anthony Crivello (tracks: 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 31)
Vocals [Lisette] – Kimberly JaJuan (tracks: 6, 12, 28)
Vocals [M.C.'s Mother] – Vivian Reed (tracks: 2, 3, 13, 28, 32)
Vocals [Magdalena] – Mary Testa (tracks: 24, 32)
Vocals [Marie Christine] – Audra McDonald (tracks: 1-12, 14, 16, 18, 21-27, 29, 30)
Vocals [Petal] – Janet Metz (tracks: 9, 19, 20, 22)


NOTES:

presented at Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont


NO SAW CUT! NOT A PROMO!