Word: lp
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There is more to an opera performance than voice, of course. Beverly rightly describes herself as a singing actress, with equal stress on each word. That is why her live performances will always be more exciting than her recordings, successful as those recordings may be (the recent four-LP set of Massenet's Manon has sold 25,000 copies in a market where sales of 10,000 for a single LP are considered substantial). "I'm a visual performer," she says. "I have to act, use facial expressions, get mood changes across. It's hard to share any of this...
...vulgarity is less in the realm of religion than of theatrical taste. Serious Lloyd Webber and Rice fans, in fact, may well be advised to open a new chapter in the age of McLuhan by turning down a chance at the show "because I loved the record." On LP, Jesus Christ Superstar is abstract, intimate, capable of subtly engaging the mind and the imagination. Director O'Horgan's frenetic Broadway incarnation is rarely any of those things. It is, instead, a frequently breathless and occasionally stupendous son et lumière show, crowded with mechanical contrivances, and a headlong rush...
...little like the old New York Yankees summoning up 20-game winners from the farm system. Various Hair troupes produced Superstar's Judas and Jesus. A Superstar concert tour and the LP provided Mary Magdalene and Pilate. "There's a special kind of singer needed for rock opera," O'Horgan explains. "It's much more gut, more street. We have vocal ranges in this show that no one could produce without a mike, not even Birgit Nilsson...
...talks like a character out of a book by his favorite novelist, P.G. Wodehouse, and looks like somebody's kid brother home for the long hols. If fame and fortune have not yet disturbed them, it may be because so much of it has come in the U.S. "The LP record is an absolute dud in England," Rice explains. "Only three weeks ago a friend of my mother's said, 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if Tim could make a living out of that song...
...infringement suits and restraining orders, just to keep people from pirating words and music, have cost MCA and Producer-Manager Stigwood $125,000 in lawyers' fees already this year. Their record to date: 15 court actions, dozens of unauthorized shows closed down. With the success of the original LP, Stigwood moved toward developing a stage version and launching touring concerts less than a year ago, only to find that he had been beaten to the punch. By whom? By churches, in cities and towns large and small from New Jersey to New Mexico, who were using Superstar to stir...