distressing news

[Condee]

<<since Lawrence Welk>>

Thomas, eloquently put, except of course that Lawrence Welk is a god.

Prof. Nancy Condee, Director
Graduate Program for Cultural Studies
2206 Posvar Hall
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-624-7232


-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Thomas Keenan
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:58 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] distressing news

It?s distressing because, and this of course is merely my own opinion,
Andrew
Lloyd Weber is a composer who wrote a few decent musicals in the 70s and 80s
[?Jesus Christ Superstar?, ?Evita?] and since then has slouched further
and further into the kind of inane, pandering, mainstream,
not-even-Disney-material pap that draws busload after busload of tourists to
Times Square to blubber and dab their eyes as the deformed wretch who dwells
beneath the Paris Opera is abandoned by his beloved soprano amid some of the
most insipid, American-cheese melodies and uninteresting, single-layered,
nuance-free orchestrations since Lawrence Welk. My fear is that he will take
this fascinating, enigmatic text replete with polyvalent images,
intertextual
resonances and creative manipulation and fusion of generic models and 
extract a
banal the-power-of-love story in which Kot-Begemot will be reminiscent of
scrappy Rumple Teaser from Weber?s 1980s show ?Cats? and the Master and
Margarita (a former Backstreet Boy and Marie Osmond?) will be hoisted to an
incandescent moon hanging from the rafters accompanied by a finale of dripsy
swelling strings, ringing brass, crashing timpani and pyrotechnics, lasers
and
elaborate scenery meant to make up for the unidimensional book and score.
The
synopsis of Bulgakov?s novel as formulated by Weber (I don?t have the link
handy, GOOGLE ?Lloyd Weber Master Margarita? and you?ll get there) did
little to allay my fears. I?m sure that, in terms of copyright law, the
novel
has long been public domain and certainly ALW technically has as much right
as
anyone else to realize his conception of it but my personal view is that the
work is better off enjoying the considerable popularity it has already 
garnered
than being travestied and served up to millions of philistine theatre-goers.

TFK




Quoting Tony Lin <tonyhlin at BERKELEY.EDU>:

> Hi Mr. Keenan,
>
> I know next to nothing about this composer, but why is this a distressing
> news? I am interested in knowing why you think that.
>
> Tony Lin
>
>> I regretfully inform you that Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber has announced that h
>> e
>> is composing a musical (or maybe an opera) based on Master i Margarita.
>>
>>
>> TFK
>>
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