Musical drama is an art supported by attractive plots and based on the dramatic performances of actors, which makes music and dance give full play to their potential and integrates these factors into an organic whole. Britain and America are countries in the heyday of musicals. From the perspective of music development, West End of London and Broadway in new york are the birthplaces of musicals. However, musicals in Britain and the United States also have different historical backgrounds: in the United States, they are more influenced by jazz, tap dancing, dramatic drama and comedy with singing; In Britain, musicals have more to do with operetta and drama, especially the dramatic backgrounds of Shakespeare, Moliere and Ibsen, while dance is closer to ballet. However, since arthur sullivan and william Gilbert, British musicals have continued the tradition of operetta. Until 1970s, operetta could not compete with Broadway productions. In the United States, although most of the initial performances were imported from Britain, soon after, American artists created completely Americanized music works, which were constantly developed and improved. Therefore, from a historical point of view, it was Britain that inspired the United States and created musical, a new form of drama that integrates popular drama, music, singing and dancing. Here, this paper will further explore how the United States has developed various musical entertainment traditions from Europe into musicals.
At present, there are many opinions about the origin of musicals: one is 19 th century classical operetta and comic opera which originated in Europe; Talking about American vaudeville, which consists of country songs, black soul songs, jazz music and pop songs and dances; On/kloc-the "musical farce" and "musical comedy" created by the British in the 0/9th century; One is the black hook in 1866 and the later drama type of "drama plus song and dance". In addition, there is a kind of "comprehensive origin theory", which holds that musical, an extremely complex cultural phenomenon, cannot be produced only from a single cultural origin. It must absorb nutrients from various cultural elements to build its own artistic flesh and blood, so its formal sources must be diversified.
This paper discusses the origin of musical, and thinks that the comprehensive origin theory is more reliable. This is because the "comprehensive origin theory" not only accepts the achievements of other theories, but also is closer to the actual state of music development history than other theories. In this regard, Julian Mates put forward in his book "American Music Stage": "It is the role of many elements that makes our music stage colorful. The development of American musicals combines all elements of the musical stage, from circus to ballet, from melodrama to serious opera; Moreover, the emergence of talented actors, changes in society and changes in audience tastes will all lead to changes in musicals. " Mette's point of view reminds us to look at the historical origin of musicals from a broader perspective. Next, based on Mette's point of view, this paper investigates the influence of various musical stage elements and black music all over Europe on American musicals until American musicals, as a musical art school, begin to move on the right track.
First, the influence of opera on musicals.
The profound traditional opera in western culture is the object of musical learning and imitation, whether it is the plot content or the performance method. The strong vitality of European operas enables them to constantly combine fashion and absorb popular elements, resulting in folk operas, funny operas and operettas. These dramatic forms traveled across the ocean to the United States, which triggered many local imitations. Here, this paper will first consider the characteristics and differences of these operas and their contributions to musicals.
1, from folk opera to Xi opera
Opera was introduced to North America as early as the18th century, but the opera itself must undergo great changes to adapt to local tastes, such as the recitation tone being replaced by dialogue, and the complex voice combination being simplified to chorus. At that time, North America was once a British colony and was deeply influenced by Britain in music and drama appreciation. Just as serious opera became more and more boring, the beggar's opera, a work called folk opera, was a great success in Britain, and then it was also a great success in the United States. The play premiered in London on 1728, which is characterized by connecting songs with dialogues and filling words with folk songs and pop songs at that time. The content of opera reflects the life of the lower class. The characters on the stage are no longer fairies and heroes in traditional operas, but robbers, thieves, prostitutes and beggars. , made a sharp satire on the corruption of bureaucratic politicians and the stereotype of serious operas. Realistic themes, wonderful performances and novel music applications immediately caused a sensation in the play.
The original folk opera is basically the same as the beggar's opera, with loose dialogue instead of recitation, occasionally interspersed with dance, and the plot is mainly comedy. Music tunes were taken from popular songs at that time and rewritten with new plots, but the songs were not closely related to the plots. With the continuous development of folk opera, its songs no longer only use popular tunes in the streets, but begin to be patchwork everywhere, so a hodgepodge of performance forms has emerged. This form not only uses popular songs at that time, but also selects beautiful tunes from the music works of various times, regions and famous musicians, and selects the dances that everyone likes to connect in series. The play "Country Love" staged in Britain in 1762 immediately produced a large number of imitations in North America.
When popular songs reconcile past works and are borrowed repeatedly, new creations will be produced logically. At first, this new creation was a hodgepodge, and many people often wrote songs and composed music together. No one will care about the inconsistency in style caused by this. The next further development is that all the lyrics or tunes of the whole play are written by one person. Because the popular folk tunes are no longer borrowed, the comedy form remains. We call this newly created work comic opera.
When comic opera developed to the19th century, operas and folk operas still had a large audience, but in contrast, comic opera played a more important role in the American music stage. Xi Opera House has specially written music scores, which has returned to the opera mode in this respect. However, unlike the grand opera, Xi Opera House embellishes many specially written music scores and carefully designed dances in the romantic storyline, but there is no close internal relationship between song and dance and the plot. Nevertheless, comedies, especially the songs in comedies, reflected the real life and the spirit of the times in the United States at that time. Funny performances or satirical news have become excellent subjects. Of course, there are also many patriotic works. The appearance of these works makes American comedy opera have its own characteristics, which is also the difference between American comedy opera and British comedy opera.
2. The influence of operetta.
Traditional Chinese opera is the product of the continuous integration and infiltration of folk opera and cross talk. French offenbach is the founder of operetta, and his orpheus in the underworld (1858) is the first perfect operetta. He not only adopted the satirical form popular in folk operas, but also matched the political, social and funny materials at that time. Although there was dialogue, he sang and sang. Offenbach's works became popular in the United States after the American Civil War, and his audience was often Italian opera fans.
After offenbach, johann strauss II, the "King of Waltz" in Vienna, also had outstanding operettas, but it was arthur sullivan and william Gilbert in Britain who made operettas reach new heights. The collaboration between composer Sullivan and humorist Gilbert began at 187 1, and by the end of the collaboration in the 1990s, they had contributed 13 operettas, which became a model of English operettas in the late19th century. 1878, H.M.S. Pinafore, written by Gilbert and Sullivan, swept across North America, and major theatrical troupes competed to stage the play, with 24/kloc-0 performances in Boston alone. The successful performance of imported European operetta in the United States has played a good role in promoting the creation of American operetta. Although many operettas have been produced under the influence of Europe, there is still a big gap compared with the European level.
Under the influence of Europe, American John Prilip Sosa was the first to compose operetta. He started writing smugglers from 1879, and then wrote *** 19, but it is no different from European works. It was victor herbert who made the American operetta truly have a unique American style. Herbert's first operetta Prince Annecy (1894) was an instant hit. After a sensational success, he wrote more than 50 operettas in twenty years, including Baby in Toy Kingdom (1903) and Baby in Toy Kingdom (1904). Naughty marietta is a classic, which established his leading position in American Broadway operetta.
Herbert's operettas, as well as later ones such as Lamborghini and Fraimon, are still in the same strain as Viennese operettas in artistic features, paying more attention to the performance of music, emphasizing the dominant position of music and pursuing beautiful tunes. The organic combination of drama development and various artistic factors does not consider writing for specific characters and specific time and place, but only puts wonderful layout, exquisite costumes and beautiful tunes. The broad melody used in vocal music writing is carefully arranged and perfected, but its starting point is not around the needs of the story, which leads to the inconsistency between music and content. By the end of the 1920s, the operetta, which once flourished on the American music stage, gradually declined after Herbert's death. However, in many later music works, especially My Fair Lady by alan jay lerner and Frederic Loy, it still had a strong operetta flavor.
The overview of opera works is based on 400 years of opera tradition. Taking a foreign country or mythical history as the background, select legendary figures and tell a tortuous love story through touching songs. These works have reached maturity in the narrative form of music, and the dialogue and songs are smoothly connected. However, most of the small operas rarely involve profound social themes, and in the design of drama and music, many fancy bridges that have nothing to do with the plot but are purely for the singer to show off his skills are reserved, so that most of these works lack rigorous structural patterns. Despite these shortcomings, operetta still plays a very important role in the development of musicals. It profoundly affects the audience's appreciation taste and forms a set of evaluation criteria among the audience, thus making fresh and vivid scripts, beautiful music and elegant drama poems the creators' pursuit goals, and reminding musicals to strengthen their artistic depth with serious theater style.
Second, all kinds of entertainment dramas in European cities.
Compared with elegant hall theaters, vaudeville theaters, various performance venues and low-level bars in major European cities,
Brothels provide more vivid performance space for the birth of musicals. From burlesque, vaudeville, vaudeville and Reveue to the burlesque in Siegfried, these secular and even forbidden stage performances are accepted by Americans with the same roots as Europe. This kind of performance is still prosperous and popular today. It is through the role of these catalysts that it brings more affinity to musicals and gradually integrates into our favorite Broadway musicals today.
1, from funny programs to variety shows
/kloc-the industrial revolution and immigration tide in the 0/9th century made the population of the United States surge, the number of cities increased, and the voices of the middle and lower classes became increasingly strong. Due to communication reasons, a large number of immigrant audiences and actors from non-English-speaking countries are not interested in operas and plays with a lot of dialogue. They need intuitive, simple but humorous or exciting performances, so these entertainment places are full of funny performances and variety shows. These performances are called "shows" because the plot is rough and it is difficult to call them "plays", so they have to be collectively called "shows".
Early cartoons were funny sketches, and 19 was the most popular in the 1940s. The comedian George L. Fox is also famous for his funny Hamlet. His facial muscles are very flexible and can create unexpected expressions. However, after Fox, funny shows have irreversibly embarked on the erotic route, and the songs and dances that are often interspersed in funny shows have attracted more and more attention from the audience. 1868, Lydia Thompson's "English Blonde" dance company brought strippers. After the dance company caused a shock, the funny show turned into a pornographic performance. Funny performances soon became the highlight of hotel entertainment. In various public entertainment places, circus, singing, dancing, current affairs programs and erotic funny programs are mixed together according to the boss's preference, which is called variety show.
The original variety show was only for men, and this kind of performance was often considered "unclean", not only because of the pornographic elements in the performance, but also because of the bad environment in the theater. From 65438 to 2009, great changes have taken place in the 1980s. Many variety shows began to face families, so pornographic content was cancelled and the theater environment was greatly improved. In 188 1, Tony Paster first presented a "clean" variety show, and later presented coupons or children's toys to families, which attracted audiences from all walks of life, including some influential figures in new york. So others followed suit. Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward F. Albee established a series of variety show theaters, and their successful commercial operation made them strong in the entertainment industry. Since Keith, the word "juggling" has been used to refer to this kind of "clean" variety show. Variety shows are mainly fragmented variety shows, talk shows, hilarious dramas and song and dance performances, which are quite similar to modern variety shows. Its performers can be musicians, vagrants, Hercules, contortionists, tightrope walkers and firefighters. And the announcer is often a clown who advocates turning some ordinary performances into heavy programs. Variety show was a very popular entertainment activity before the invention of movies, but it gradually disappeared with the rise of talking movies.
2. Black liars with plays and songs and dances.
1866, a French ballet company was invited to new york to perform their ballet "Doe in the Woods", but the theater reserved by new york Conservatory of Music was destroyed by fire, and the venue for the performance could not be determined. At the same time, a melodrama "Black Hook" based on the novel "Faust" is about to be staged in a grand theater converted from a park. The fire in the theater made the owner of the play have a whim and took the opportunity to hire all the staff, scenery and dance of the French ballet. Make up two plays that have nothing to do with content and form, and let the ballet dancers perform the dance scenes of gods and monsters in the plays. Because more than 80 beautiful women wearing flesh-colored tights and dancing barefoot were added to the drama structure, and the bizarre stage setting naturally formed an irresistible temptation to the audience. So this "hodgepodge" actually performed 16 months and toured the United States as many as 475 times.
The sudden outbreak of the black hook made other theatrical troupes and theater owners salivate, so they copied it one after another. The characteristics of this drama type of "drama plus song and dance" are: opera-style theme, leg show composed of funny shows and variety shows, and some songs and dances or soundtracks inserted at the climax and intermission of the drama, mostly for the pursuit of entertainment and sensory stimulation. Although this type of drama has obvious traces of patchwork of drama and song and dance performances, it sets a standard for later large-scale dramas and gorgeous scenes and is a great synthesis of many elements of previous stage performances. Although various performance elements have gathered together at this time, there is no internal organic connection and it takes time to integrate.
3. vaudeville.
Current affairs programs are actually a comprehensive form of more serious funny programs and variety shows. The word "Revue" comes from French, and Americans call it "French Revue". In its original form, the French performed imitation performances every year, recreating last year's current events to satirize them, plus luxurious songs and dances and comedians' jokes. 19 In the 1990s, current affairs programs became popular on the American stage. Current affairs programs not only reflect the theme of current affairs, but also pay attention to gorgeous song and dance scenes and contain various performance elements. In addition, its scripts, lyrics and music are specially written to express specific themes, which is a feature that distinguishes current affairs programs from other similar performance types (such as variety shows). ). The first current affairs program on Broadway was 1894' s Passer-by Show. Since then, similar current affairs programs have been staged on Broadway for several years. In the 20th century, current affairs programs have firmly occupied the stage in new york.
The further development of American current affairs programs has become a farce. Siegfried Zigfeld, the top producer of Broadway, accepted the proposal of his fiancé e, French singer and dancer Anna Held, and made a luxurious song and dance show to summon beautiful women like clouds by imitating French current affairs show (Folies-Berger), but his original intention was not to satirize current affairs, so he named it Follies. 1907 this extremely luxurious performance was held in the small garden theater on the top floor of Olympia Theatre, and the response was quite strong. Since the appearance of the Liv Show, Siegfried Wilde shouted the slogan "Praise American Girls", which caused a sensation throughout the country. Among the wonderful performances, the most representative programs are usually made by one or more handsome tenors wearing dresses and singing soft love songs. Then, the beautiful women dressed in extremely exaggerated and gorgeous costumes, stepped on the steps of golden carvings and jade carvings, recited poems carefully written by writers and lyricists, and went down to the world level by level. In short, it must be luxurious, gorgeous, elegant, exquisite and gorgeous. Siegfried Wilde's Splendid is large in scale and elaborate in production. It is the pinnacle of the comprehensive integration of variety shows and current affairs programs, and has had a far-reaching impact on the development of Broadway musicals.
Farce, variety show, current affairs and rich show can be said to be close relatives on the music stage. Compared with the stage performances of traditional Chinese opera families, they injected pop songs and dances into musicals. In the later historical development of musical, emphasizing plot and singing and dancing became two main lines of development.