Dear Vocalisters,
I tried to keep an open mind about the show. There were some things
better than the original movie musical version and some worse:
Matthew Broderick: Briefly OK.
Frankly, I don't see the bid deal. He seemed to enjoy himself in
parts of the show but his lay-back real life personality was not
overcome by his acting ability. He was not convincing as a con man.
His singing is OK but that's about it. He had a tight jaw, lacked
energy and commitment. His diction was pretty darned good; better
than RPs by a mile. He had to reach for the low notes but the highs
seemed fairly easy for him. I think he'd be a tenor if he could work
up the energy to sing the rep but that's not going to happen. His
dancing was very fluid and good.
Kristin Chenowith: Briefly: Exquisite except for the nasality in the
lower 2/3rds of her voice.
She has a better instrument than Shirley Jones had but doesn't know
how to use it nearly as well. I judge singers performances by what
distracts me from the story they're trying to tell. Her nasality
frustrated me, I just wanted to pinch her nose because otherwise she
has a very lovely voice.
Aside: I sometimes despair that popular tastes will be spoiled by hip-
hop and boy band nasality and an ever-so-slight sharp-side singing
that the general population will no longer know what good clear
singing sounds like. Those groups use nasality to manufacture a
blend. If everything's fuzzied up by nasality, you can't really tell
that everybody isn't together on their consonants. They also use the
nasality to help them match timbre. This disease is rampant in
Babershop singing as well but not in the group that sang for this
show (more on that later).
I loved her interpretation. She sang her solos with great sensitivity
and style and when she let all the air out of her mouth, the sound
was glorious!
Barbershop quartet: Briefly: Fantastic!
They had a fine Bass and the Tenor was much better that the guy from
the Buffalo Bills of yore (now THAT guy was nasal <shudder>). Their
diction was excellent, so much so in fact that I suspect that they
were probably from England and not from the US. All the
barbershoppers from around here seem to be nasal and have really
muddy diction.
Over all, I thought the show was pretty darned good; almost as good
as the original.
Regards,
Les
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