In an earlier post, I mentioned that I have been attempting to have a neo-baroque operetta called "Patricia" composed. This is an ongoing project, but if you would like to listen to demonstration recordings of two arias, you can find them here. Please feel free to comment on what you like or don't like about these songs, which have a feminist theme.
I mention this because Jerry Herman, the composer of "Hello Dolly" and other popular musicals recently died. As his obit in the New York Times noted, at a time when Stephen Sondheim and other contemporary composers were writing "dark, intricate melodies and witty, ambiguous lyrics, he (Herman) wrote song-and-dance music that stuck to the story line with catchy tunes and sunny phrases of hope and happy endings."
One of my gripes about contemporary opera is that it, like some contemporary musicals, doesn't have any memorable songs -- no melodies or lyrics that one can really remember or want to remember. Indeed, it sometimes seems the singer comes last despite the fact that the main reason people go to the opera (as opposed to going to the theater, watching television or reading a book) is to hear great voices sing beautiful and/or powerful songs.
"There are only a couple of us who care about writing songs that people can leave the theater singing," Herman told the NYT at one point during his career.
Well, that's just what the composer with whom I am working and I are trying to do.
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