a little stage music

[calimac]

I should have been doing something else, but never mind: a senior recital at Stanford by a soprano whose repertoire lay entirely in contemporary musical theater was an attractive enough idea that we both went, being as usual when we do something like this probably the only attendees who weren't personal friends of the singer.

She was talented but had a small voice and not much stage presence, so I could understand why she said she's pursuing a career in backstage work and management instead of performing, but she chose a good selection of songs I'd mostly never heard. Much better than the bleak and dull material that I've found from too much recent musical theater. A couple of the songs - from Next to Normal and Newsies respectively - stuck with me enough that I dug out recorded performances of them.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Now, if our student had brought the same crispness and rhythm that she gave to that second song to the Baker's Wife's song from Into the Woods, she would really have had something. One other thing the above performance has in common with the recital I heard last night: the piano was too loud.

Comments

[wild_patience]

I was excited to hear "Superboy and the Invisible Girl" but was very disappointed in the song. The lyricist has a profound misunderstanding of both of the characters, I felt. Superboy was neither a prince nor immortal. The Invisible Girl was a grown-ass woman when she first took that name. Not to mention that they are owned by different companies. I appreciated the song character's emotional turmoil and desiring the abilities to both fly and hide. It just was a disappointment to an old comic book fan.

[calimac]

I presumed they had to be talking about some other Invisible Girl, because not only did the character not match the Invisible Girl I knew of, but what did she have to do with Superboy? She was from a different comics company! Obviously I was overthinking this.