GrantParkMusicFestivalSeventy-seventh Season

Grant Park Orchestra and ChorusCarlos Kalmar, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

Christopher Bell, Chorus Director

Broadway Rocks!Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.Jay Pritzker PavilionGRANT PARK ORCHESTRARandall Craig Fleischer, Guest ConductorChristiane Noll Capathia Jenkins Rob Evan Doug LaBreque Chicago Gay Men’s ChorusPatrick Sinozich, Artistic Director

Broadway Rocks Overture MAY/MERCURY We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions WILDHORN Th is Is the Moment from Jekyll & Hyde SHAIMAN Good Morning, Baltimore from Hairspray GAUDIO Medley from Jersey Boys MANCINA Circle of Life from Th e Lion King FOGERTY Proud Mary from Street Corner Symphony STEINMAN Total Eclipse of the Heart from Dance of the Vampire SHAIMAN You Can’t Stop the Beat from Hairspray ANDERSSON & ULVAEUS Anthem from Chess Medley from Mamma Mia LARSON Seasons of Love from Rent SCHWARTZ Defying Gravity from Wicked DeYOUNG Come Sail Away from Power Balladz KRIEGER And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going from Dreamgirls LLOYD WEBBER Phantom of the Opera from Phantom of the Opera Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera MACDERMOT Aquarius / Let the Sun Shine In from Hair

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Th is concert is sponsored by:

RANDALL CRAIG FLEISCHER is Music Director of the Youngstown Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Anchorage Symphony, and has appeared as guest conductor with many major orchestras in the United States and internationally, including engagements with the Boston Pops, China Phil-harmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Phil-harmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Phila-delphia Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Festival Cesky Krumlov (Czech Republic) and many others. Mr. Fleischer is a graduate of Oberlin College and Indiana University, studied conducting privately with

Otto-Werner Mueller and in master class with Seiji Ozawa, Ricardo Muti and Gustav Meier, and was a Conducting Fellow with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood in 1989. He served as the Assistant Conduc-tor of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989. Mr. Fleischer first came to international attention when, while serving his first of five years as Assistant and then Associate Conductor of the Na-tional Symphony Orchestra, he conducted Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich as solo-ist during the NSO’s 1990 tour of Japan and the U.S.S.R., the first time Rostropovich had played cello in Russia since his forced exile in 1972. Mr. Fleischer was featured in the internationally broadcast PBS documentary Soldier of Music that documented Rostropovich’s return to the Soviet Union, as well as on a 60 Minutes segment about that event. Mr. Fleischer was again chosen to accompany Mr. Rostropovich with the National Symphony Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall in New York in a performance of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante celebrating the composer’s birth. In December 1992, Mr. Fleischer conducted an ensemble of over seventy cellos, including Yo-Yo Ma, and a 190-voice chorus in the Kennedy Center Awards tribute to Mr. Rostropovich, which was televised nationally on CBS. In 1993, he conducted a private concert for Pope John Paul at the Vatican. The Pontiff awarded him a medal for his achievements in music. Mr. Fleischer is also active as a composer and arranger, and his works have been played by major orchestras in America and abroad. Among his recent orchestral compositions is Triumph, which includes ceremonial Navajo songs and dances. A passionate educator, Randall Craig Fleischer has co-authored several instructional pieces for children in collaboration with his wife, comedian Heidi Joyce. Their “Cool Concerts for Kids” have been performed with great success by orchestras around the coun-try. In January 1991, Ms. Joyce and Mr. Fleischer co-authored and premiered “Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Spiritual Journey” with the NSO, a piece for narrator and orchestra that explores the history of the civil rights movement with excerpts of Dr. King’s speeches, narrated by Dr. King’s daughter, Yolanda King. This piece was broadcast on PBS in February 1995. Mr. Fleischer lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, Michaela.

New York native CHRISTIANE NOLL made her Broadway debut starring in Jekyll & Hyde, creating the role of Emma, and has since been nominated for both Tony and Drama Desk Awards, won a Helen Hayes Award for her portrayal of Mother in the Kennedy Center revival of Ragtime, and received an Ovation Award for her role as Hope Cladwell in the national tour of Uri-netown. Ms. Noll, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a founding member of Midtown Direct Rep. Theater Company, has toured nationally and internationally with productions of Grease!, Miss Saigon, City of Angels and South Pacific, made her opera debut with Plácido Domingo in Washington National Opera’s The Merry Widow at the Kennedy Center, been featured in New York’s City Center ENCORES! series, and appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Hollywood Bowl and with major orchestras in Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing. Christiane Noll supplied the singing-voice of Anna in the Warner Brothers animated feature The King and I, and is also widely known for her cabaret engagements. She has made more than twenty recordings, including four solo albums: Christiane Noll: A Broadway Love Story, The Ira Gershwin Album, Live at the Westbank Café and My Personal Property.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2011 GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Brooklyn-born and raised CAPATHIA JENKINS made her Broadway debut in The Civil War, creating the role of Harriet Jackson. She then starred in the Off-Broadway revival of Godspell, and returned to Broadway in The Look of Love, in which she was critically acclaimed for her performances of the shows’ Bacharach/David hits. Ms. Jenkins went on to create the roles of The Wash-ing Machine in Caroline, Or Change and Frieda May in Martin Short–Fame Becomes Me. In 2007 she starred in the Off-Broadway (mis)Understanding Mammy–The Hattie McDaniel Story, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Most recently she was seen in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Ms. Jenkins worked with composer Louis Rosen in producing three CDs: South Side Stories, One Ounce of Truth–The Nikki Giovanni Songs and The Ache Of Possibility; they have also enjoyed success with their concert shows in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Harare, Zim-babwe. She can also be heard on the film soundtracks of Nine, Chicago and Legally Blonde 2. Capathia Jenkins has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, Utah Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic, and appeared in 30 Rock, Law & Order SVU, The Sopranos and other TV shows.

ROBERT EVAN starred in the original Broadway production of Jekyll & Hyde, playing the title roles for three years and over 600 performances, and was featured in the all-new Jekyll & Hyde: The Concert, which has played around the world. Mr. Evan also appeared in the role of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables on Broadway, and was chosen to lead the National Touring Company on its history-making stop on Broadway. His other Broadway roles include Kerchak in Disney’s Tarzan, Count von Krolock in Jim Steinman’s Dance of the Vam-pires and Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. in Little Shop of Horrors. Off-Broadway, he created the roles of The Dancin’ Kid in Johnny Guitar and Miles Hendon in

The Prince and the Pauper. He has toured and recorded with the platinum-selling rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra, including the premiere production of their rock opera, Beethoven’s Last Night, in which he played the title character. Mr. Evan, a graduate of the University of Georgia, has appeared in cabaret and for corporate audiences across the country, toured nationally with Broadway Rocks!, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway, and appeared with many of America’s leading orchestras. In addition, he produced and starred in the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids Benefit Concert of Chess at the John Houseman Theater in New York. Robert Evan has received the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Talent Award and the “Shining Star” award from the Leukemia Society of America, and was honored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America for his charitable support.

DOuG LABRECQuE, a graduate of the University of Michigan, has starred as both The Phantom and Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera and as Ravenal in the Hal Prince Broadway revival of Showboat, a role he also performed in Canada and Chicago. Mr. LeBrecque toured nationally with Les Misérables and was featured in Oscar Hammerstein’s 100th Birthday Celebration on Broadway at The Gershwin Theatre, as well as in the world premiere of A Wonderful Life by Sheldon Harnick and Joe Raposo, and in the first revival of Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s Love Life. Regionally, he has performed leading roles in Candide, A Chorus Line, Man of La-Mancha and many other shows. He recently made his Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist with the New York Pops in a tribute to Richard Rodgers. Mr. LaBrecque’s other special engagements include sing-ing with Carole Bayer-Sager at Feinsteins’ in Manhattan and the Cinegrill in Los Angeles, performing alongside Broadway legend Jerry Herman with the Naples Philharmonic, and appearing onstage with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch (singing together!) at Hickory Hill, the legendary home of Ethel Kennedy. Doug LaBrecque has performed with the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C. and many other leading American ensembles, as well as with the Korean National Symphony, Shanghai Radio Orchestra, Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic and Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL

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B56 2011 Program Notes, Book 2 2011 Program Notes, Book 2 B57

The CHICAGO GAy MEN’S CHORuS (CGMC) has been an integral part of Chicago’s cultural and gay communities since 1983. For the last 28 years, CGMC has entertained audiences across the continent with in-novative musical programming, exploring everything from love to politics to the sometimes fabulous, sometimes challenging world of being gay — often all at the same time. Chorus subscription concerts have included: original musical revues; five popular productions celebrating the Sidetrack show tune experience; full-length book musicals like The Wizard of Oz, The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore; original musicals like The Ten Com-

mandments: The Musical; and traditional choral concerts — all punctuated with CGMC’s signa-ture joyous irreverence. CGMC has traveled extensively across North America, representing Chi-cago in Montreal, New York, Miami, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other cities. The chorus has also brought entertainment back home, inviting choruses from across the United States and Europe to perform with them in Chicago. Notable milestones in CGMC’s recent history include induction into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, multiple performances of the National Anthem at Chicago Cubs baseball games, and the production of three CDs: Cool Yule, I Will Be Loved Tonight and Favorite Things. With more than 150 singing members backed by a small army of volunteers performing critical administrative and support functions, the CGMC family covers a diverse cross-section of the Chicago metropolitan area. Under the guidance and direction of Artistic Director Patrick Sinozich since 1997, the chorus is driven by the work of both its singing and non-singing members, logging thousands of hours annually to accomplish an ambi-tious schedule of rehearsals, performances, fund-raisers and charitable appearances. In addition to an annual subscription season, CGMC makes guest appearances supporting at-risk populations such as GLBT student groups and AIDS support and care organizations. The chorus is constantly exploring new opportunities to share its unique brand of entertainment and provide important community outreach, education, goodwill and a positive GLBT image. For more information or to find out how to support the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, visit www.cgmc.org.

Patrick Sinozich, currently in his fourteenth year as Artistic Director of the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, holds degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music and Northwestern University. He studied music, psychology and theology at Wayne State Univer-sity, the University of Detroit Mercy and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Mr. Sinozich also serves as Music Director of Chicago a cappella and Assistant Music Director at St. Clement’s Catholic Church, and is on the musical staff of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He operates a private vocal coaching studio and appears regularly in vocal and chamber music recitals throughout the United States. An accomplished composer and arranger, Mr. Sinozich writes and arranges much of the material used in CGMC productions. His arrangements have also been sung by choruses in New York, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Kansas City, Denver, Cleveland, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix and elsewhere across the country. Patrick Sinozich has produced four CDs for Chicago a cappella and three for the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus.

CHICAGO GAy MEN’S CHORuS

Patrick Sinozich, Artistic DirectorJames Morehead, Accompanist

Virginia Broersma, Artistic Administrator

FIRST TENORSChristian CastilloJacob ChristopherNick ConnerBrian DoveMonica ElenbaasJanneke FowersJeremy HilbornBen HladilekMatt HonabergerLarry JohnsonScott JonesMitchell LaksDave LeeJohn MasuraHarold MooreDrew NixonJonathan PughKen PuttbachRicky RamosDavid RohlwingScott SponslerRichard Williams

SECOND TENORSRichard AielloMarvin AusbyChad BausAaron BenhamChristopher BlasoneEric BobergChuck BrickerTony CampiseChris ChenRich CinquepalmiMichael CohenMisha DavenportSonny DeGuzmanMark DuebnerEric EdwardsSam EngwallRyan FisherJames FitzgeraldEric FredericksKiel GallandSteve GeiermannAnthony Gerena

Seth HarropKevin HeffernanGordon HyattCurtis JacksonJonathan JohnsonDanny KopelsonChuck LambertBill LarkinRon LehmanSteve LencioniKyle LetendreRoberto LopezAdam LoredoMichael MarinoGreg MarquisJim MartinSteve MattusSteve MaxeyMichael McGrawDavid MeimersMarty MillerJuan MontanoSean MurphyJason OttReggie OwensJohnny PerezJeffrey RichardsRyan RobertsWilliam SnodgrassMatthew StamanRichard StraubFrank SutterBrandon VejseliAlan WalkerZak WattsRichard WelchTroy U. Yilmaz

BARITONESJohn AdemolaJustin AndersonMichael ApplebaumDavid AshbyAndrew BouveretteMarty BrownAlex BudaScott Clodfelter

Craig DannenbrinkSeth DibbleeDion EdwardsDale FahnstromEdward FarnhamFrancis FeeleyMarty FinnTim GallagherSpencer GartnerNate GlickBart GoldbergAndy GreeneBrian HamPeter HillsmanLee HollisJeremy HumkePhillip JosephEric KarasYiyun LanJohn LittlerLeonard LloydDavid LongEike LummaLarry MaucieriPatrick McGuireTim McKernanMatt MillerPaul MillerTom MylesJason ReavesRon RobertTodd RodrigueMichael RomanGaetan RouetteDavid SchuringaPaul ShounPerry SimmonsGeorge SmartChristopher StrattonStephan TalsoJ.D. Vincent

BASSESAndris AntonsTerry AyersSam BlakeMike Bonnett

Bill BordonaroBenjamin F. Calvert IIIAntonio CalzadaAdrian CrawfordDudley DiehlMike DungheMichael ElderJames FloresMark GershmanAdam HibmaDavid KinnardMichael KirbyStephen LevReuben LewyPaul LorensenGeorge LuebkingJames MeissPaul MumbergerLarry OlsonDavid OrtGary PaarenJeff PortJon PutnamJohnathan Sanabria-RosaGary ScanlonDaniel SullivanKevin SwerdlowMichael WehmanMichael WiedmannGregory WilkersonPeter Zukowski

SuPPORTArnie Cuarenta, General ManagerFreddy AldanaDerek BartonRon DegenStephan DimosRen DuarteChristopher HanneganMerry MaryJimmy PipkinsJacob Young

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GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL Wednesday, July 13, 2011 Wednesday, July 13, 2011 GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL

We Will Rock You was written by Brian May for the 1977 album News of the World by the British rock group Queen. May, the band’s guitarist and songwriter, said that the song, with its a cappella form accompanied only by foot-stomping and hand-clapping, was a response to an incident in Stafford, England during Queen’s tour earlier that year: “We did an encore and then went off, and instead of just keeping clapping, they sang You’ll Never Walk Alone to us, and we were just com-pletely knocked out and taken aback — it was quite an emotional experience really, and I think these chant things are in some way connected with that.” We Are the Champions was written for the album by Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsary in Zanzibar), the band’s lead vocalist and song-writer. News of the World went multiple-platinum in the United States and United Kingdom, the single of We Will Rock You, backed by We Are the Champions, became a worldwide best-seller, and the songs were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009. In addition to having become a sort of crowd anthem at many sports facilities, We Will Rock You also lent its title and music to the rock musical created in 2002 by Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor. The run of We Will Rock You (which also included We Are the Champions) that opened at London’s Dominion Theatre in May 2002 continues.

Despite the inherent theatricality of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Jekyll & Hyde, it had never been brought to the musical stage before Frank Wildhorn envisioned such an undertaking during his student days at USC. In 1988, Wildhorn enlisted veteran film and stage composer and lyricist Leslie Bricusse in the project, and they started writing songs for the show that got picked up by Sammy Davis, Jr., Liza Minnelli and other singing stars even before the first version of Jekyll & Hyde was staged in Houston in 1990. Finally, in 1997, Jekyll & Hyde was ready for Broadway, and the show opened a successful run at the Plymouth Theatre on April 28th. In the story, Dr. Jekyll sings This Is the Moment just after he decides to make himself the subject of his own dangerous experiments into the nature of human good and evil.

Director John Walters’ campy 1988 film comedy Hairspray, about a “pleasantly plump” teenager in 1960s Baltimore who pursues stardom on a local TV dance show and then rallies against racial segregation, provided the basis for the hit Broadway musical that composer Marc Shaiman, lyri-cist Scott Wittman and writers Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan created in 2002. Hairspray opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on August 15, 2002, won eight Tony Awards (including Best Musical and Best Score), and ran for 2,642 performances before closing on January 9, 2009. The show has been produced and toured around the world, and was made into a Hollywood feature by director Adam Shankman in 2007 that broke the record for opening-weekend ticket sales for a movie musical. The joyous Good Morning, Baltimore rings up the curtain on Act I. The rock-driven You Can’t Stop the Beat provides the show’s infectious finale.

The Four Seasons — Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man, Rag Doll, Bye, Bye, Baby, Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You — was one of the most successful musical groups of the 1960s. In 2004, Four Seasons keyboardist, backing vocalist and songwriter Bob Gaudio and producer, singer and songwriter Bob Crewe collaborated with writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice in creating the musical Jersey Boys, which traces the development of the group and its famous frontman, Frankie Valli, through many of its songs. After a try-out at the La Jolla Playhouse, Jersey Boys opened at the August Wilson Theatre in New York on November 6, 2005, won four Tonys (including Best Musi-cal), and continues to climb the list of longest-running Broadway shows and draw big crowds to its touring productions. A film version is projected for release in 2014.

Following the tremendous success of the theatrical adaptation of the animated feature Beauty and the Beast, it was hardly surprising that Disney would bring to the stage The Lion King, the studio’s highest grossing animated film and its best-selling movie soundtrack ever (eight million copies sold worldwide). What stunned the theater world was the breathtaking representation of the savannas and animal life of Africa that the production’s design team, led by Julie Taymor, brought to the stage of the magnificently restored New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street. The Lion King won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and became the hottest ticket in Broadway history. Elton John, Tim Rice and Mark Mancina, who created the score for the movie version of The Lion King, were called back to work on the Broadway transformation, in which they were joined by Jay Rifkin,

Hans Zimmer and Lebo M. Circle of Life, the show’s opening number, celebrates the continuity of life in nature’s realm.

Though Creedence Clearwater Revival survived only five years after vocalist and composer John Fogerty founded the Cajun-influenced rock band with his older brother, Tom, in 1967, the group made such a lasting impact that it was inducted into Cleveland’s Rock & Rock Hall of Fame in 1993. “It’s quite an honor,” John Fogerty commented. “I equate Hall of Fame things with baseball, and since I was a little kid, the people in the Baseball Hall of Fame have been my idols. The fact that we have a Rock & Rock Hall of Fame is pretty cool.” Among the most successful songs that Fogerty wrote for the band was Proud Mary, which was released in the 1969 album Bayou Country and as a single that made it to No. 2 on the Billboard charts. Proud Mary (which Fogerty said, cryp-tically, was about “a washerwoman named Mary”) was included in the short-lived 1997 Broadway show Street Corner Symphony, conceived by producer, director and choreographer Marion J. Caffey, whose score was a compilation of classic rock, R&B and Motown hits.

The Fearless Vampire Killers, Polish-French film director Roman Polanski’s 1967 spoof of 1950s horror movies, provided the basis for The Dance of the Vampires (Polanski’s original title for his film), the German musical created in 1997 by American record producer and composer Jim Steinman and German theater lyricist and translator Michael Kunze. Tanz der Vampire opened in Vienna on Octo-ber 4, 1997, but the long-planned Broadway production was troubled by virulent creative disputes among the collaborators, constant changes in the book and music, and a difficult star (Michael Crawford, who had originated the title role in Phantom of the Opera), and Dance of the Vampires ran for just 56 performances after opening at the Minskoff Theatre on December 9, 2002 and lost $12 million (an amount not approached again until the travails of the current Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark). In Total Eclipse of the Heart, Sarah, the story’s inevitable Transylvanian village maiden, muses about her strange relationship with the vampire, Count von Kroloch.

After winning phenomenal success with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber by releasing “concept albums” of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1967), Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Evita (1976) before committing them to stage productions, lyricist Tim Rice chose for his next such project a story in which American and Russian chess masters meet for a propaganda-driven match in Italy during the Cold War; the love interest was provided by the American’s manager and second, who leaves him when she falls in love with the Russian. Rice enlisted Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, long associated with the Swedish pop group ABBA as members and composers, to write the music. The 1988 Broadway production ran for just 68 performances, but Chess has continued to enjoy wide success in productions, tours and concert presentations in Britain, America, Europe and Australia. The Anthem that closes Act I is the Russian competitor’s song of praise to his homeland.

During its relatively brief existence (1972-1983), the Swedish group ABBA (an acronym of the first letters of the members’ names: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad) became one of the most successful pop groups in recording history, selling nearly 400 million albums worldwide. Most of ABBA’s songs were written by Andersson and Ulvaeus, who in 1997 began collaborating with British playwright Catherine Johnson to work 22 of them into a musical titled after the group’s 1975 chart-topper, Mamma Mia. Since opening at London’s Prince Edward Theatre on April 6, 1999 and the Winter Garden Theatre in New York on October 18, 2001 (both productions continue playing to sold-out houses), Mamma Mia has become a theatrical legend: seen by more than 42 million theatergoers and grossing more than $2 billion worldwide; productions in fourteen languages on six continents; a 2008 Hollywood version (starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård and Amanda Seyfried) that became the third highest-grossing musical film of all-time; the soundtrack of Mamma Mia as well as both the London and New York original cast albums went platinum.

Only seven times in the history of the American theater has a musical received the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama: in 1996, with Rent, Jonathan Larson joined the Gershwins (Of Thee I Sing, 1932), Rodgers & Hammerstein (South Pacific, 1950), Bock & Harnick (Fiorello!, 1960), Frank Loesser (How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, 1962), Michael Bennett & Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line, 1976) and Sondheim (Sunday In The Park With George, 1985) in being

B60 2011 Program Notes, Book 2

GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL Wednesday, July 13, 2011honored for an achievement of significant social and artistic importance. The creation of Rent is it-self of almost operatic pathos: Larson, an aspiring actor and playwright, living a bohemian existence in a scruffy New York loft and working as a waiter in Soho, dreams of creating a new kind of musical theater that draws on Elton John and The Who as much as Sondheim; spending seven years con-ceiving, nurturing, writing and composing a show that transforms the plot of Puccini’s La Bohème into a gritty but sympathetic look at the hard life in the AIDS-shadowed ’90s; working relentlessly to bring Rent to its New York premiere in April 1996 — and then dying, age 36, on the night of the final dress rehearsal. Rent’s significance and theatricality were recognized with multiple Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and the show has come to be regarded as one of the landmark productions of the late 20th century. Seasons of Love, the Act II opener, suggests that even lives of pain and uncertainty should be “measured in love.”

MGM’s 1939 The Wizard of Oz, based on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s novel, is one of the icons of American culture. In 1995, Gregory Maguire published Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the first in a series of revisionist novels that look at the familiar story from the perspectives of the magic land’s resident characters who encounter the stranded Dorothy on her quest to get home to Kansas. Three years later, Maguire granted stage rights for the book to veteran Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, The Magic Show), who brought in Emmy Award-winning dramatist and screenwriter Winnie Holzman to begin turning it into the musical that would become one of Broadway’s all-time hits: Wicked. After a summer try-out in San Francisco, Wicked opened on October 30, 2003 at the George Gershwin Theatre in New York, where it continues to set box office records. Defying Gravity is the spectacular Act I closer in which the “Wicked Witch” Elphaba takes to the skies to sing of her determination to confront the Wizard’s corruption and face the likelihood of being publicly denounced by his government.

The American progressive rock band Styx featured Come Sail Away, written by the group’s key-boardist and vocalist, Dennis DeYoung, on its 1977 album, The Grand Illusion. The album achieved multi-platinum sales and became one of Styx’s biggest successes, and the band regularly used Come Sail Away thereafter to close its live shows. The song was included in Power Balladz, a rock revue that played briefly Off-Broadway in 2010.

Composer Henry Krieger and lyricist Tom Eyen based their Dreamgirls loosely on the on- and off-stage lives of such Motown artists as The Supremes and The Shirelles. The show traces the career of The Dreams, a 1960s Chicago girl group, and the effects that work and success have on the personal lives of its members. Dreamgirls was a hit, running on Broadway for almost three years after opening at the Imperial Theatre on December 20, 1981, winning six Tonys and two Gram-mys, touring internationally, and creating a second sensation with its 2006 screen adaptation. In the passionate torch song And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going, Effie, The Dreams’ lead singer, pleads with Curtis, the group’s manager and her former lover, not to replace her or end their affair. Jennifer Holliday won both a Tony and an Oscar for her portrayal of Effie on stage and screen.

Andrew Lloyd Webber had his first inkling of making a musical from The Phantom of the Op-era, Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel, when his wife, Sarah Brightman, auditioned for Ken Hill’s 1984 adaptation of tale, which inserted actual operatic excerpts into the story. Brightman did not take the job, but Lloyd Webber took the idea, and in late 1984, he started work on a show based on the melodramatic story of the disfigured composer who haunts the Paris Opéra and the young soprano he takes as his protégé and would-be lover. Hal Prince, who had created a sensation with Evita, was brought in as director, and 24-year-old Charles Hart, whom producer Cameron Mackintosh discovered at a song-writing contest, was engaged to do the book and lyrics. The Phantom of the Opera opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London on October 9, 1986 and became a smash hit. It duplicated that success on Broadway when it began its continuing record-breaking run at the Majestic Theater on January 26, 1988. The title song sets the aura of mystery and menace inherent in the Phantom’s character. In Music of the Night, the Phantom entices Christine to join him in his dark musical world.

©2011 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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