What's the difference between British and American musicals? What are the creative characteristics of Puccini?

What's the difference between British and American musicals?

The origin of western musicals

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.

1, English musical comedy

The name "musical comedy" was first used in Britain. At the end of 19, the pace of social life and public psychology gradually accelerated, and people gradually lost their enthusiasm for the slow and light comedy style, which led to the bleak box office revenue and the loss of cinema owners. In London, England, a theater manager, George Edwardes, tentatively staged a "musical farce" "The City" in his theater on June 5438+0892 10, which was full of funny performances and fresh and lively singing and dancing programs. After the play was released, it was very popular. In addition to "Great Joy", Edwards released a drama, music, song and dance in the second year, and used the title of "musical comedy" for the first time. The play is full of humor and drama, and its easy-to-understand music has caused a sensation and achieved considerable box office performance. Edwards' unprecedented success has attracted many theater owners in London to follow suit and compete to launch various musical comedies. Since then, musical comedy has become the most popular stage art in London and even Britain, and soon it appeared on the American stage.

2. American musical comedy

As early as 65438+1970s, a stage art form similar to English musical comedy appeared in the United States, which was popular in the middle and lower classes of new york society, but it was called "musical farce-comedy" in the United States at that time. Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart further developed this musical farce. From 1879 to 1884, they jointly created a series of musical farce about Broadway, including Mulligan Guard Ball 1879 and Desire. The performance not only retains some humorous forms of funny performances and juggling performances, but also has plot development and concerns about society, but it is always expressed in humorous forms. Here, there is more sympathy for various life situations than sharp criticism. Song writing also has a distinctive American color, but songs and plots are always difficult to correspond, and it is common to fill in new words with old songs. 1896, after "Geisha" produced by Englishman Edwards entered the United States in the name of "musical comedy" and caused a sensation, Americans used this word to refer to musicals with American characteristics that were alienated from the European opera tradition, including the musicals mentioned above.

American musical comedies in this period have a basic plot, which is not just a song and dance and farce, but the plot and characters are not profound enough. In this kind of works, "narrative" is not the purpose of singing and dancing, but the excuse of singing and dancing. With the formula of "boys meet girls", various elements of the American dream and Cinderella myth are alternately used, and various song and dance tricks are interspersed in simple plots to form a fixed genre model. As far as its content and form are concerned, it seems to be exactly the same as Edwards' Happy Girls, and even the name is directly copied from the "musical comedy" invented by the British. In fact, as far as its inner spirit is concerned, because the artistic structure contains a lot of genes of American native culture, it is more enthusiastic and energetic than American musical comedies, especially its music and dance, which are full of wildness, vitality and movement. The impact of this cultural spirit and the shock of inner charm are the fundamental signs that American musical comedies are different from British musical comedies.

3. Cohen's American style

When musical comedy developed to George M. Cohan, he no longer paid too much attention to Xiao Yu's fantastic plot, but had a more serious theme. He chose a more dramatic and civilian exploration route, emphasizing the integrity and coherence of drama development clues, emphasizing the beginning and end of the story, abandoning the plot of fairy tales in content, and positioning the protagonist of the drama as ordinary people and small people in daily life, thus being closer to the life interests of ordinary people. At the same time, his plays are strongly patriotic and insist on expressing Americans, American life and American society with American music. 1904, Cohen wrote, directed and acted Johnny Jones Jr. for Broadway, which became famous at one fell swoop and then became popular in new york. In the following twenty years, * * * wrote 2 1 plays and nearly 500 songs. Cohen's works are a bridge between19th century musicals and real American musicals, which is an important link in the process of musical modernization. In his works, he removed the elegant artistic conception based on the ancient pattern of Britain and Germany, and successfully created a modern life style in new york that conforms to the rapid movement and changes. Although Cohen's songs have not been sung so far, he inspired a generation of music writers at that time, and his artistic exposition and praise of the American spirit also infected a generation of listeners. More and more artists realize that the American spirit has matured and are eager to seek their own unique expression.

Fifth, the formation of musicality.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, through the efforts of a group of artists, American musicals gradually got rid of the influence of British musical comedies and completed the transformation from musicals to real American musicals. On the one hand, American musicals are influenced by European light music operas with different styles, and there are even musicals performed in karaoke bars and dance halls. On the other hand, it also absorbed the emerging pop music, ragtime, blues and other factors. After decades of exploration and local practice, both positive and negative experiences have accumulated to a considerable extent. No matter the public, cultural businessmen, artists or musicals themselves, they are all waiting and calling for the emergence of musical masters and works.

1927 The Show Boat, written by Hammerstein II and composed by Guillaume Kern, premiered in Broadway, New York, and was regarded as the first milestone in the history of American musicals. From a musical point of view, The Performing Arts Boat combines the various musical stage forms mentioned above. The story of "The Show Boat" was born in the mysterious and romantic Mississippi River. It is far from the life experience of Broadway audiences, and it is a bit of a drama. Siegfried Wilde, the king of song and dance, participated in the production of the whole play, which also made the performance of the play rich and elegant; The use of ragtime music and jazz shows that black music has become an indispensable part of excellent drama; Finally, it is not difficult to find the influence of musical comedy from the plots such as the heroine becoming a star and reuniting with the hero. All kinds of musical stage forms and musical elements boarded the "boat of performing arts" together, representing the end of the previous road and indicating that a new voyage is about to begin.

Looking back on the development of early musicals, we can see that this is a period of ambiguous identity. Various musical traditions, entertainment dramas and some song and dance elements from Europe influence, interweave and blend with each other. But in general, these entertainment traditions can be divided into two categories: one focuses on the plot and the other focuses on singing and dancing. Plot-oriented musical comedy originated from European opera tradition and popular in Europe and America. Opera tradition has brought solemn, elegant and romantic elements to later musicals, and its content mostly expresses classical myths or exotic customs, while musical comedies allow musicals to design plots for current events, or criticize or gag. A musical that emphasizes singing and dancing, influenced by popular variety shows, variety shows, current affairs and rich shows in Europe and America, is constantly innovating in performance form. In the later development of musicals, we can always see these two tendencies, namely, focusing on the plot or focusing on singing and dancing. Of course, the integration of the two is natural. Musicals have gradually accepted the aesthetic standard of the integration of drama text and music since the performance ship, trying to imply the continuous development of musical lines, melody, drama and background music. It is the beginning of serious musical, which indicates that "Musical" will replace gag "Musical Comedy". Therefore, Cohen became the first real American music composer, and The Boat of the Performing Arts was regarded as an immortal work. From here on, American musical as an art type began to get on the right track.

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