Word: superstars
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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English blames the season's retooling frenzy on the narrow-mindedness of network executives, who she says often feel their job is done once they secure the services of an onscreen superstar for a show. "You have to have a great star," she explains, "but you also need a great concept and really good writers. People were paying more attention to getting stars than other things, and they found out later that no person or group of people can carry a show alone. If you don't deliver with that first episode, audiences won't come back, no matter...
...Theater: Boston's elegant old theaters feature some of Broadway's biggest shows. I've seen "Les Miserables" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," among other performances. And since you're now the proud owner of a Harvard ID card, you're eligible for student rush tickets. Just before the show, most of the theaters sell their left over seats deeply discounted. But call ahead to find out what time student rush goes on sale and show up early, because the lines do get long...
...mainly the image of Liszt as music's first international superstar, and one of the Romantic Century's great Don Juans, that remains fixed in our collective memory: a slim, strikingly handsome six-footer with a flowing mane of shoulder-length hair, a piano conjurer able to summon near orchestral effects and rouse audiences to such frenzied emotional states that the poet Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania." "I think I laughed--laughed like an idiot" is how Edvard Grieg described his ecstatic reaction to Liszt's playing. George Eliot's recorded impressions of Liszt come very close to swooning...
...able to make most of them work by means of raw energy, youthful good looks and old-fashioned showmanship. There are plenty that hold up well on record, however, such as One Song Glory, a brave, bold blast that compares with some of the best tunes on Jesus Christ Superstar, the pioneering 1971 rock opera. However, neither Rent nor Noise/Funk is as bold musically as JCS was in its day. Noise/Funk sounds a little stuffy compared with current hip-hop releases like A Tribe Called Quest's Beats, Rhymes and Life, while Rent lacks the raw sonic invention...
Rent does end on a high note: R.-and-B. superstar Stevie Wonder, who doesn't appear in the stage version, delivers an uplifting version of Seasons of Love, one of the show's signature pieces. Arif Mardin, who produced the album, says Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang were also approached to guest-star on the CD, but Wonder had the only schedule that allowed it. He's all that's needed anyway. His rendition of Seasons of Love is soulful, disarming--and something you haven't already heard even if you saw the show on Broadway...