The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.2008  Tuesday, 16 November 1999.

[1]     From:   Melissa D. Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 16 Nov 1999 08:23:22 -0800
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.2002 Re: Something Scary

[2]     From:   Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 17 Nov 1999 08:30:00 +1000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.2002 Re: Something Scary


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Melissa D. Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 16 Nov 1999 08:23:22 -0800
Subject: 10.2002 Re: Something Scary
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.2002 Re: Something Scary

>I wonder if Hamlet the Musical is scarier than Otello the Opera? Or
>Hamlet the ballet? Or 'My Private Idaho' as history play?

Whoa. I like Otello.  I have a theory that because the music tends to
dictate stage directions and mood, opera is a bit less malleable and
more period-sensitive than Shakespeare.  So Otello , with its demonic,
Edwin Booth-like Iago, and its over the top Othello,  is probably not
unlike what a performance of Othello might have been like in the late
nineteenth century.  And maybe that's what you don't like.

The operatic version of *Hamlet*, by Ambroise Thomas, is supposed to be
less successful, but I don't know it.

Melissa D. Aaron
http://www.csupomona.edu/~maaron/index.html
California Polytechnic State University at Pomona

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 17 Nov 1999 08:30:00 +1000
Subject: 10.2002 Re: Something Scary
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.2002 Re: Something Scary

>I wonder if Hamlet the Musical is scarier than Otello the Opera? Or
>Hamlet the ballet? Or 'My Private Idaho' as history play?
>
>Interesting point: did serious lovers of Dickens find 'Oliver!' the Bart
>musical, as scary then? Is the only way we can deal with desperation by
>guying it? I really don't know what the answer is here.

Stuart Manger raises a legitimate point, and I am a bit ashamed of
myself...in a posting that appears this very day, I (again) use the
epithet "scary" (see SHK 10.2004).  I do think Hamlet the Musical sounds
somewhat less felicitous than Hamlet the ballet.  Branagh is apparently
working on a Love's Labours Lost-the Musical, for an upcoming film.  I
am skeptical about this, but LLL might work better than Hamlet.
Although, I still have fond memories of the Gilligan's Island musical
version of Hamlet.

About "Oliver!"-I recall that my 10th grade English teacher, a lover of
Dickens, was quite disgusted about the musical version, and especially
the film version that came out around 1970.  She really hated the
singing, dancing orphans.

Cheers,
Karen Peterson-Kranz
University of Guam

Subscribe to Our Feeds

Search

Make a Gift to SHAKSPER

Consider making a gift to support SHAKSPER.