distressing news

[Mark Yoffe]

Early in his musical career ALW showed (in my humble opinion) real musical talent and his first 3 musicals/operas, particularly Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita have moments of melodic brilliance. The guy was an accomplished tune-smith, and probably still is, though off course to sustain same degree of high level productivity over so many years a few pop/rock composers can. He was also blessed by having by his side brilliant librettist Tim Rice, who could turn anything in to a candy. Through the 70s ALW was very much attracted to biblical stories and particularly to the image of Jesus Christ, who is represented twice in his work in Superstar rock opera and as a secularized image in Evita. During that period ALW was part of so called Jesus Movement, which perceived Jesus Christ as something like a first hippie, and believed that his teachings were close to hippie ideals, or based their hippie behavior and beliefs upon elements of Jesus teachings. Jesus Movement was a big part 
of general hippie thing of the time. 
It is interesting that in early 70s Soviet hippies were attracted to the image of  Christ and eventually to the novel M&M itself by the message received from listening to Jesus Christ Superstar which was enormously popular in SU. For many Jesus of Bulgakov and one from the rock opera kind of blended into one image of super-hippie. Bulgakov’s novel had a great influence upon Soviet hippie movement, as did JCS and other rock anthems of crucial historical importance (one of which JCS has become in that period). 
It is obvious now that ALW has not outlived his fascination with figure of Jesus and the way how it can be rendered within parameters of rock music. Writing an opera based on M&M will be for him revisiting of old territory, a territory on which he was very much at home and at his best. I think if there is someone who can attempt writing a musical score to M&M it should be him, and it might be really good. It might not be, off course. But I on my part am very excited and interested to see his project accomplished.

Mark Yoffe, 
Curator, International Counterculture Archive, GWU

----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Andrew <j.m.andrew at LANG.KEELE.AC.UK>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:20 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] distressing news
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

> Come on! - why don't you say what you really think?!
> 
> While being no musicologist, I think that AL-W has had an enormous,
> popularising impact, certainly in the UK.  I personally don't care 
> for his
> musical style at all, but far more people know about, eg Eva Peron 
> et al.
> than would have been the case without Evita.  Maybe his M&M might 
> actuallylead far more people to read the book than would have 
> otherwise.
> Joe
> 
> 
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:57:34 -0400 Thomas Keenan 
> <thomas.keenan at YALE.EDU>wrote:
> 
> > 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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> ----------------------
> Joe Andrew
> j.m.andrew at lang.keele.ac.uk
> 
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