While I was almost hopelessly strolling through the streets of Smolensk, I had musicals in my ears again. I always plunge into the well-known plot, and the boredom around me is not so depressing.
“Hair”, superclassical dramatical musical about the Vietnam war, and Milos Forman’s 1979 film version twists the plot and makes it even more paradoxical. You surely heard the song “Let the Sunshine In” covered by the “Army of Lovers”
“Avenue Q” is a relatively recent masterpiece, 2003: 32-38-year-olds happen to live in the same building, and they suddenly understand that ‘their lives suck’. The musical is full of jokes against the political correctness. The musical has a distinct feature: its main characters are puppets, but the artists are seen in parallel with the puppets on the stage.
“Fiddler On the Roof” is after Sholom Aleichem‘s stories. Jews of Anatevka, small village in Tsarist Russia, are going through their usual routine when suddenly tempestuous historical events rush in…
“Mozart. Opéra rock” is, I daresay, the second of the two successful French-language musicals of quality (the first one is “Les Misérables“) to have conquered the international audience. The last years of Mozart’s life: something strange is going on in the country and around him personally. Is he going to agree to write that Requiem?
Original titles (English and French):
Fiddler on the Roof
Mozart. Opéra rock
Hair
Avenue Q
First published in the Levinarium Telegram Channel (now closed and deleted)