Word: webber
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...asked it of Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, who appeared on our cover in 1947, when he and his partner, Composer Richard Rodgers, had five shows, including their musicals Oklahoma! and Allegro, playing on Broadway. (For all his popularity, Hammerstein had a yearly income of $500,000 -- roughly half of Lloyd Webber's present monthly royalties.) We wrote then that Hammerstein's words "carry a gentle insight and a sentimental catch in the throat to millions of people who are only dimly aware of his name." Within a decade, though, such sentimentality had given way to a more hard-edged style...
...Lloyd Webber's pioneering smash hit Jesus Christ Superstar wedded the manic energy of rock 'n' roll to the musical theater, and appeared on our cover in 1971. Associate Editor Michael Walsh, who wrote this week's profile, met Lloyd Webber in 1984 and has seen him frequently since. "A lot of people say that he's very cold and brusque," notes Walsh, "but I've never known that side of him. He's extremely enthusiastic when talking about musical things." That passion bubbled over at one point during Walsh's interviews for this story. "Lloyd Webber sat down...
What would provide the most stimulating change of pace after Starlight Express's romance of the rails? For Andrew Lloyd Webber it was the sweep and dash of pure old-fashioned romance. He found it in French Novelist Gaston Leroux's 1910 thriller Le Fantome de l'Opera, long a standby for stage and screen adaptations (notably Lon Chaney's 1925 silent horror film). The version devised by Lloyd Webber and Librettist Richard Stilgoe dispensed with much of the novel's narrative superstructure to focus on two characters: the gruesomely disfigured genius who haunts the Paris Opera and the young...
...principal lyricist, Lloyd Webber chose Charles Hart, 26, a novice who had only one previous, unperformed musical to his credit; in counterbalance, the composer tapped the veteran director Hal Prince, 59, who * had contributed so much to the success of Evita. Lloyd Webber composed the role of Christine with his wife Sarah Brightman's crystalline voice and fragile Pre-Raphaelite looks in mind. The trick was casting the Opera Ghost. His choice was British Actor Michael Crawford, 45, whom he had heard sing in the 1979 London show Flowers for Algernon and who had appeared in such films...
...while last year, it appeared that Brightman might not be allowed to repeat her role in New York. Actors' Equity objected to her being cast in the Broadway production, rather than an American actress, on the ground that Brightman was not an international star. Lloyd Webber was furious. His implied threat of no-Sarah, no-Phantom eventually prevailed, but under an agreement with the union, Brightman will play Christine for only six months. To preserve her voice, she will appear in six of the eight weekly performances; American Patti Cohenour will sing the other two. (Crawford's contract...