Godspell director Danny Goldstein and Stephen Schwartz, first day of rehearsal, Sept 12, 2011

For the final issue of The Schwartz Scene for 2011, composer Stephen Schwartz shares his thoughts about his trip to London to see a revised PIPPIN, his work on GODSPELL for Broadway, and more. You’ll also find updates about Godspell, Wicked, and Stephen Schwartz events. http://www.theschwartzscene.com/quarterly-newsletter/issue-44-autumn-2011/

If you haven’t yet subscribed to this free online newsletter for future issues, go to http://www.theschwartzscene.com/quarterly-newsletter/ to sign up and/or to read back issues.

Happy Holidays — Carol de Giere, Editor, The Schwartz Scene newsletter and blog

Stephen Schwartz

Have you seen the latest issue of “The Schwartz Scene”? This issue for the summer of 2011 includes composer Stephen Schwartz’s report on his recent activities. He comments on My Fairytale, the upcoming revival of Godspell on Broadway, and other topics. Here’s where to find it: http://www.theschwartzscene.com/quarterly-newsletter/issue-43-summer-2011/

If you haven’t yet subscribed to this free online newsletter, go to http://www.theschwartzscene.com/quarterly-newsletter/ to sign up and/or to read back issues. Enjoy! — Carol de Giere, Editor, The Schwartz Scene newsletter and blog

Now that my Stephen Schwartz biography, Defying Gravity, has been out for three years and you’ve all read it (right? – www.DefyingGravityTheBook.com), it’s time for new material for Schwartz and Wicked enthusists. So I’ll report on three books you could read this fall. 

Wicked: A Musical Biography

 My friend Paul Laird wrote a book that came out this summer. Paul is a professor of Musicology at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses in music history, musical theater. His book is called Wicked: A Musical Biography -  Wicked: A Musical Biography.

He drew extensively from the 150 pages on Wicked in my Defying Gravity (giving me credit, of course), as well as The Schwartz Scene newsletter.  He extended the scope beyond my ending point (which was the show’s opening on Broadway). Chapter 8 of Wicked: A Musical Biography covers what happend to the musical after the Broadway opening, including a sizeable section about the London production.

Professor Laird approached Stephen Schwartz for his own interviews, asking questions that a musicoligist would ask. He also interviewed Winnie Holzman (who wrote Wicked’s “book” or script) and explores the Schwartz/Holzman collaboration in a chapter “Collaboration and Creation.” Schwartz gave him access to handwritten music drafts of various versions of songs, some of which he includes as images in the book. In his chapter “The Music and Lyrics of Wicked” readers will find comparisons of versions of the score and playscript.

When I wrote Defying Gravity, I used a “narrative nonfiction” style so that readers would feel like they were present at the time Stephen Schwartz and others were working on Wicked. (Narrative nonfiction is a style used for books like Three Cups of Tea or The Devil in the White City.) Professor Laird writes in a consciously evaluative style offering a careful study of what happened as Schwartz and Holzman pieced together the Broadway musical Wicked while adapting Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked for the stage.

Also beyond the scope of my book, Laird provides a chapter called “Wicked in Context” that places the themes of Wicked in context of musical theatre history.  And he includes a chapter covering orchestrations for Broadway and the differences between this and touring productions that use a smaller orchestra.

Wicked: A Musical Biography may be most useful for students or faculty members writing papers, for composers who want details about Schwartz’s subtle adjustments to his score over time, and for fans who want to collect everything about the show.

Gregory Maguire’s Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years

Out of Oz

Gregory has really outdone himself with this final book in his Wicked series–a series that began with the book that launched the musical. This new one to be released November 1st is listed at nearly 600 pages. It’s available for pre-order in hardcover, Kindle, audio, and large print. Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years 

Maguire has said that this novel focuses on Glinda. As he told me for an issue of The Schwartz Scene, “all I can say about it before it is released in, I hope, the fall of 2011, is that it opens with Lady Glinda under house arrest….”

The blurbs offer enticement: “a thrilling and compulsively readable saga in which the fate of Oz is decided at last. . . The stirring, long-awaited conclusion to the bestselling series begun with Wicked, Out of Oz is a magical journey rife with revelations and reversals, reprisals and surprises—the hallmarks of the unique imagination of Gregory Maguire.”

Maguire fans can now “Friend” Gregory on Facebook for future updates. Also, to listen to a 30-minute audio segement of the book, go to excerpt on a website: http://www.harpercollinswidgets.com/hc.php?wid=374

Unnaturally Green

Felicia Ricci, former Elphaba Standby in the San Francisco Company of Wicked, has announced her memoir: UNNATURALLY GREEN: One Girl’s Wild, Impossible, Pit-Stain-Filled Adventure Along a Yellow Brick Road Less Traveled. Here’s a description of this book that is due out in October: “From her audition to the show’s closing, to every moment in between, Felicia takes you behind the scenes of her first professional theater job (ever!) as she understudies Elphaba, Wicked’s lead character.” Unnaturallygreen.com/

Sunday, April 10, 2011 – Is It a Musical or Opera panel

Stephen Schwartz

A panel of distinguished composers and playwrights join Stephen Schwartz for an in-depth look at what defines the opera and musical theater genres. The roundtable will take place on the set of Schwartz’s hit Broadway musical Wicked. It has been reported that Adam Guettel, John Kander and David Henry Hwang will be joining Stephen Schwartz.  George Steel will moderate. Sunday, April 10 at 7:30 pm, Gershwin Theatre, 222 West 51st Street, NYC opera event info

April 19 – May 1, 2011, Seance on a Wet Afternoon opera NYC premiere

A scene from Stephen Schwartz's opera "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" at the world premiere production. Photo by David Bazemore

If you haven’t yet read about the New York premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s opera Séance on a Wet Afternoon, be sure to check this out:  Stephen Schwartz opera Seance on a Wet Afternoon. New York City Opera is staging Seance April 19 – May 1. Scott Schwartz directs this first professional opera that his dad wrote.

Thursday, April 21, 2011, New York City, Dinner and Concert–Defying Gravity: The Music of Stephen Schwartz

The NYC opera is hosting a special concert and gala evening featuring Anne Hampton Callaway, Kristin Chenoweth, Raúl Esparza, and Victor Garber. NY Opera concert

Carol de Giere

You’re invited to a Stephen Schwartz fan gathering before the “Defying Gravity” concert in Manhattan on April 21. We’ll have a casual dinner at 6 pm before walking to the concert. Send me a message at carol@musicalschwartz.com if you plan to come and I’ll send location details. It will be at a diner with a wide range of menu choices and prices. — Carol de Giere (author of the Stephen Schwartz biography Defying Gravity and editor of The Schwartz Scene newsletter and blog) and Chris Kuczewski (President, UNLIMITED: The First Official Wicked Fan Society)

Saturday, April 23 – Opera Insights

Seance on a Wet Afternooon director Scott Schwartz will discuss the opera, Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 12:00pm NYC opera site.

Thursday, April 28th at 6pm, Artists Dialogue – NYC

The New York City opera will be holding an artist dialogue for Seance on a Wet Afternoon, with Stephen Schwartz and others. Look for the April 28 listing: Stephen Schwartz as part of the NYCO lecture series

More Schwartz Events

This listing is posted in conjunction with The Schwartz Scene Quarterly Newsletter, Spring 2011 issue. Subscribe to the newsletter here

Children of Eden with full orchestra

Children of Eden is one of Stephen Schwartz’s most popular musicals for stock and amateur productions through Music Theatre International, thanks to the rich score and philosophically interesting book. Now Piane Productions is taking it to a new level. They’ve organized a world premiere for the symphonic version of the show, and a special concert as well. For the first time, Schwartz’s Children of Eden will be accompanied by a 55-piece orchestra. These performances will run in Kansas City from July 15 to 24, 2011.

Concert and Schwartz Fan Meet-Up

Stephen Schwartz

Piane Productions also organized a special concert on July 18th, featuring 4-6 well-known theatre performers and a variety of KC-based professionals presenting a celebration of Stephen’s musical catalogue. The concert will be performed with a full symphony orchestra.  This unique evening will include an on-stage interview with Schwartz about his career and musicals. The concert is set for July 18th at 8:00pm at the Music Hall in Kansas City (201 W 13th St. Kansas City, MO 64105).

More information about these shows will be available in the coming weeks at PianeProductions.com (link opens in new browser window)

Carol de Giere

YOU’RE INVITED TO A GATHERING

I’ll be in the Midwest this summer, heading out to Kansas City for the concert and show. I’m meeting with up some Schwartz fans for lunch before the show on the 17th, and you’re welcome to join us. Email me at carol@musicalschwartz.com with “KANSAS CITY” in the subject line to be notified of details as they develop.

– Carol de Giere, The Schwartz Scene editor and author of the Stephen Schwartz biography, Defying Gravity.

Children of Eden

ONLINE RESOURCES:  Children of Eden Albums, Sheet Music, Synopsis, Licensing info, etc.

The Children of Eden Logo is from the licensing agency Music Theatre International.  They run a social networking site with a Children of Eden section that includes a link to the licensing, rentals, and more information.

Other Schwartz Events

For information on additional events with Stephen Schwartz subscribe to The Schwartz Scene

Composer Stephen Schwartz speaks to a group about the origins of his musical "Wicked" - September 2006

Audio clip from a public talk

On this page, in addition to an audio clip, you’ll also find the transcript of Stephen Schwartz’s public talk about Wicked‘s origins, and my introduction. For visuals, I’ve inserted a photo of Stephen Schwartz and novelist Gregory Maguire from their first meeting over the rights.

You can also take a look at the PDF sample chapter from my book “Defying Gravity,” Chapter 16 “Landing In Oz.”  It includes photos related to the material of this podcast. Defying Gravity sample chapter Landing In Oz – see photos at the end of the chapter

The sound quality on this audio clip is not the best because I taped Stephen Schwartz’s talk from across the room on a small cassette recorder. Later, I received permission to post this excerpt, and tried to clean up the audio file as best I could.

Transcript of the Podcast

INTRODUCTION

Carol de Giere: Welcome to the 2nd podcast from The Schwartz Scene website and blog at www.theschwartzscene.com. I’m Carol de Giere. Today you’ll hear from Wicked’s composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz as he discusses his discovery of the novel Wicked and the arrangements he needed to make to adapt it.

In the past Schwartz has been involved with such adaptations as Working, a musical based on Studs Terkel’s collection of interviews and Children of Eden, an adaptation of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. Back in 1996 when he first heard about the novel Wicked, he had just finished writing songs for The Prince of Egypt, a film adaptation of the biblical story of Moses, and had recently completed lyrics for Disney’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. So he was somewhat in the habit of watching out for stories that might be retold in musical form. Then he found a story that was truly wicked.

So now you’ll hear about the early moments of the adaptation process for Wicked the musical. About a year ago I attended a talk that Stephen Schwartz gave at a gathering in Connecticut. I taped the talk and my husband worked on the audio track so you can hear it a little better. Stephen approved this segment for me to share with you in the podcast. He describes a weekend vacation in December 1996. Picture him on a boating trip off the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Stephen Schwartz Talks about Wicked the Novel and Musical

Stephen Schwartz: I heard about the book Wicked in a very random and serendipitous way, about 7 years ago, maybe eight years ago now. It was one of those completely unlooked for events. I actually was on a very last-minute and sort of capricious weekend vacation with some friends. It was unplanned and came up very quickly. The last day we went on a snorkeling trip because we were in Hawaii, and on the boat on the way back to the mainland after our little snorkel adventure, one of the people that I was with just making idle conversation said, I’m reading this really interesting book called Wicked and it’s by this guy named Gregory Maguire. It’s the Oz story from the Wicked Witch’s point of view.

As soon as I heard this I had one of those light bulb moments where something just said this is a really great idea. For many reasons it seemed particularly the kind of thing that I like to do. I’m very attracted to stories that take a familiar story or myth or character and then spin it and look at it from another way. I’ve done several pieces like that; I refer to it as the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead school of writing. It is something that always intrigues me; from an academic perspective I guess it would be called post modern because it takes an existing work and deconstructs it. For whatever reason, I’m very attracted to that, so immediately that aspect of it appealed to me.

I also was very taken with the idea that this character of the Wicked Witch of the West, who is so much a villainess that she doesn’t even have a name, she is only referred to in The Wizard of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West, that someone had the idea to look at what had transpired through her point of view. It was pretty obvious that something called Wicked was going to deal with themes that appeal to me: the difference between the reality that is presented to us, where things are oversimplified and told in black and white terms, and something is evil or good and there are good guys and bad guys, and the reality of life, which is, of course, a good deal more complicated than that. For all those reasons I was very intrigued by the idea.

The next day, when I got back to the mainland, I called my representative and said look, there is this book called Wicked and somebody has the rights to it, because it has been out for about a year. And therefore someone has bought the rights. Please find out where those rights are, because I think this is something I would like to do, and then I went out to get the book.

At that point, things turned out to be lucky, frankly. It turned out the rights to the book belonged to Universal Pictures. They had bought it and were in the process of developing a movie, not a musical movie. They were a good way along, as you might imagine because the book had been out a while. They had a first draft of a screenplay and had given the writer notes, and were expecting a second draft shortly. As you can imagine, they had spent some time and money on it. So the first task was to persuade Universal to abandon the idea of doing it as a movie and to consider the idea of doing it as a stage musical, something they had never done before because they are a movie company and not a theater producing company. So I began to get meetings with various people and work my way up the food chain and it took a while. After about 6 months of this, I finally got a meeting with the gentleman who was running Universal Pictures at the time, Marc Platt, and this is where luck took over a bit. It turned out that Marc, very much unlike most motion picture executives, had a knowledge of the theater, had a love for the theater, liked musicals, and in fact in college had been in his college production of Pippin. So he was not completely deaf to my entreaties.

Basically what I did was go to him and say, ‘Look, I know you’re developing this as a film. I don’t think it’s going to work as a film and this is why,’ and I had some reasons that may or may not be legitimate but sounded cogent anyway. I said, ‘I really believe this is a theater piece. I think it needs to be a musical,’ and I gave him some reasons why, mostly having to do with the leading character of the Wicked Witch. She was going to need to give voice to what was going on inside her, and this was going to need to involve soliloquies, which are very difficult to do on film unless you do a tedious voice-over. What’s more, the usual thing film relies on to convey this kind of emotion, which is the close-up, was not going to be particularly effective in this case because she’s green and covered with makeup. So it was going to be difficult to turn her into a complicated and nuanced character. And I had some other reasons as well.

In any event, Mark was cordial and he gave me no indication that he actually was going to do this, and in fact he sent me out with a huge packet of other movies, treatments of other movies that Universal owned in case I was interested in any of them, which of course I was not. There was a bit of a depressing time when it looked as if they were not going to go along with this. I started thinking what other villains could I do? Should I do a musical about Iago? Should I do something about the wicked queen in Snow White? But nothing was as satisfying.

I had by this time read Gregory’s book and seen how much of that book lent itself to musicalization. The end of the story is obvious. Ultimately Mark did call me and say, ‘Okay let’s give it a go.’ And then I went and met with Gregory.

Stephen Schwartz and Gregory Maguire meet to discuss musical adaptation. Photo by Andy Newman, copyright 1998

Again I got lucky, because I had to go this guy who had sold his book to the movies and was waiting to have a great big major motion picture and say, ‘Guess what? Instead of that, how would you feel about the risky and unlikely prospect of a show?’ I was lucky in that Gregory is sort of an amateur musician, and he told me that he had learned to play piano by playing the scores to Godspell and Pippin. Again my past rescued me. And so he agreed, and then from that point on we began.

Carol de Giere: That’s Stephen Schwartz’s report and how it all began. And of course then he and his colleagues found ways to compress and rearrange the story from Maguire’s 406 page novel to create a 2 ½ hour musical. Thanks for listening to this podcast from www.theschwartzscene.com

Buy Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked – the Stephen Schwartz biography with 150 pages on the making of Wicked.

Visit the Wicked home page at MusicalSchwartz.com – an index to over 50 pages related to Wicked the musical.

Copyright for this blog, podcast, and website is by Carol de Giere. You may link to this blog, but do not copy any of this material without prior permission in writing. carol@musicalschwartz.com

The Art of Deception: Mrya in Stephen Schwartz’s Seance on A Wet Afternoon, Frollo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Wizard of Oz in Wicked and Bernie Madoff in real life.

A scene from Stephen Schwartz's opera "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" at the world premiere production. Photo by David Bazemore

I originally wrote these reflections about the deception theme in Schwartz’s opera “Seance on a Wet Afternoon” in the summer of 2009 before the world premiere. I’m posting them now in 2011 as the New York City Opera prepares their production.

Carol de Giere

Illusions and cover-ups were on my mind recently as I shopped for a dress for an upcoming opera premiere while wearing shorts, t-shirt, and a baseball cap. Actually, my husband and I don’t mind switching from our casual selves to dressed up versions for one night, and we’re looking forward to attending Stephen Schwartz’s first opera, Séance on A Wet Afternoon. Still, it’s interesting to consider the range of topics suggested by facades.

Séance on A Wet Afternoon weaves itself around the subject area of illusion, deception, self-delusion, being “in denial”—the misty and twisted possibilities outside of straightforward thinking. The warped mindsets of the couple, Myra and Bill, in the movie version of Séance on A Wet Afternoon, captivated Stephen Schwartz when he first saw it. Years later, when he was commissioned by Opera Santa Barbara for a new opera, he thought Séance would be ideal as source material for something tragic. [Read more about the opera]

As I ponder the kidnapping deception plot of the movie and opera, I can’t help but think of news reports of recent months and years.  I think of master deceiver Bernie Madoff, and of politicians who create facades as model citizens and prove otherwise in their actions. And so it’s not surprising that an artist like Stephen Schwartz should want to depict deception. He has already touched on the topic in his musical Wicked in terms of the Wizard of Oz. His original angle on Wicked was to create a musical that showed how “things are not what they seem.”

There’s another twist on the theme in Séance. Unlike Bernie Madoff, who apparently fully cognizant of the rules he was breaking, Myra doesn’t get what she’s doing wrong. She is in denial about the criminal nature of the kidnapping plan and only focuses on how to bring acclaim to her skills as a medium by revealing the location of the kidnapped child. She believes what she’s doing is legitimate. AND she thinks she’s better at her mediumship than she actually is—she is also self-deceived.

Claude Frollo in Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

She is much like Claude Frollo in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, for whom Schwartz wrote the lyrics for the song “Hellfire.” Frollo is the dark antagonist character who is personally haunted by his repressed desire for the gypsy Esmeralda. Writing the lyric, Schwartz has Frollo sing a prayer while saying “you know I’m so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.” Not so! He blames Esmeralda’s “witchcraft” for his own passion’s fire. He tries to destroy her.

Schwartz claims that Frollo was a delight to write for. As quoted in Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked, Schwartz says, “My favorite character I have ever written is Frollo, who is probably the most despicable human being in anything I’ve done; I love him as a character. He was so totally self-justifying and in such denial of his own true motives. It was really fun to go to dark places in myself I would never let myself do in real life. It made me understand why actors love to play villains.”

I’m sure Stephen Schwartz has also relished writing for Myra. He has commented that the movie’s characters struck him as operatic. Myra’s “intense neediness,” for example, “seemed very worthy of being sung, but at the same time, she is covering a lot of what’s really going on inside her with the veneer of calm and pleasantness.” [Comments quoted on a New York City Opera VOX Showcase video documenting his process for Séance.]

The opera depicts a difficult subject. We might consider it a kind of cautionary tale both for the times we live in and for the webs we spin for ourselves.

Says Daniel J. Boorstin about human psychology: “We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.”

For further reflection: Read Scott Schwartz’s comments about Seance themes at Schwartz Opera: Seance Details following the Synopsis.

Lauren Flanigan, Opera Soprano

To play the lead role in his first professional opera, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Stephen Schwartz chose Lauren Flanigan. He had seen her in another opera production and thought she would be a  good fit as Myra, and so he contacted her. When she said yes, that allowed him to be able to write with a performer in mind. She proved to be quite supportive of his process. He comments, “She taught me how opera singers use their voices and how knowledgeable they are about their own instruments.”

In the video you’ll see here, Stephen Schwartz and Lauren Flanigan are testing out his second act aria for Myra, called “Brightness Falls.”
By email, I asked Stephen to fill us in about the context for the piece, and his process of working with Lauren. See my questions and his responses below the video.

Play Video

Carol de Giere’s Email Interview with Stephen Schwartz

Carol de Giere:
What role does “Brightness Falls” play in the opera or why did you
write it? What are we learning about Myra in the song?

Stephen Schwartz:
The lines “It’s always so bright after a séance. Brightness just falls from the air,” are in the original film script by Bryan Forbes. I loved the unusualness of the phrase “brightness falls.” And I found it psychologically interesting and surprising that after the harrowing events of the séance that ends the first act, we find Myra not only recovered but serene and optimistic. So that’s how I chose to open the second act. We will soon find out why she feels this way.

Carol de Giere:
In the video, you and Lauren Flanigan talk about her voice being happy or not on certain notes, and you offer to rewrite it. Tell us about the process of working with her in this way.

Stephen Schwartz:
Lauren and I did very much work in the way you describe — I made adjustments in keys or certain notes to make sure she could convey the right emotional subtext vocally. In the case of “Brightness Falls”, I dropped the key a half step after working with Lauren on the aria.

Seance Opera Details

Seance on a Wet Afternoon is being performed in NYC in April and May 2011 and elsewhere in the future. If you haven’t yet read about the opera, visit these pages Musicalschwartz.com/schwartz-opera.htm and Musicalschwartz.com/schwartz-opera-seance.htm – with a list of musical numbers in Act I and II.

Read more about Stephen Schwartz at Musicalschwartz.com/schwartz.htm and my biography of Schwartz, Defying Gravity, at DefyingGravityTheBook.com/

Seance opera world premiere in 2009: Michael Jackowitz (executive producer), Stephen Schwartz (composer-librettist), Scott Schwartz (director). Photo by Terence de Giere

Stephen Schwartz has adapted the movie Seance on A Wet Afternoon as an opera. Read all about it and view photos on Musicalschwartz.com/schwartz-opera.htm (opens in a new browser window)

Stay here to enjoy this audio clip: A conversation with composer Stephen Schwartz recorded while he was writing his first opera.

Full Transcript of the Podcast:

Carol de Giere: Welcome to The Schwartz Scene, first podcast. It’s April in 2007. I’m Carol de Giere and with me is Broadway and film songwriter Stephen Schwartz. Stephen, you’re working on your first full opera now. Could you tell everybody just how long you’ve been an opera fan?

Stephen Schwartz: Well I’ve really been conscious of being an opera fan since college when one of my roommates introduced me to opera. I heard La Boheme and got very enamored of first Puccini, and then some of the Russian operas, and then Wagner and the more contemporary operas, and really started listening to opera a great deal. I’ve been told by my parents that when I was two or something like that, they had a recording of, they think it was Boris Gudenov, which is interesting because that’s still my favorite opera, and there was a soprano aria that I really liked and that I used to call the “high lady.” My mother has said that I used to say I wanted to listen to the “high lady.” Of course I have no memory of that. [See the Defying Gravity biography chapter 1 for more about this.]

Carol de Giere: I’ve noticed that you’ve shown some influences of Puccini. I wonder if you could talk about any specific examples.

Stephen Schwartz: One that I’ve often cited is that Alan Menken and I based the song “Hellfire” in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, not musically but more conceptually, on the end of the first act of Tosca, which has the villain singing about his nefarious plans while a chorus of worshippers is singing in church at the same time. And of course in “Hellfire” we do the exact same thing. That was a conscious choice. Alan and I talked about it and I said we should do the end of the first act of Tosca here, that’s what this should be. Of course musically it has absolutely no resemblance.

I think you can hear influences of Puccini in stuff that I’ve done, and others too. Sometimes it’s deliberately pastiche. “Bravo Stromboli!” in Geppetto is a complete pastiche of Rossini, the famous Figaro aria from The Barber of Seville. In fact I asked the orchestrator, Martin Erskine, to completely ape in his orchestrations for “Bravo Stromboli!” the exact orchestra make-up that Rossini used for The Barber of Seville. So there’s lots of little opera influences poking around in things.

Carol de Giere: In Wicked your songs “No One Mourns the Wicked” and “No Good Deed” have really strenuous vocal requirements that apparently are like that required for an opera singer. I wonder if you could reminisce about writing those, and compare it with what you’re doing now. Talk about the requirements for this kind of work.

Stephen Schwartz: Obviously “No Good Deed” is, I think, pretty close to an opera aria. It’s just written for a different voice type, and it’s not written to be sung unamplified. So those are the two big differences. I mean, “No Good Deed” is written for a belter—I suppose a mezzo soprano could sing it. But the orchestra is so busy and obstreperous throughout that you have to have an amplified voice to carry over it, if you want to hear the words at all. But for instance there’s a moment in “No Good Deed” where she belts a big note and then there’s a place where it suddenly gets pianissimo—she has to hit the note very loud and hold it, and then get very soft—and that’s absolutely like something one would write in classical singing or an opera aria.

Or the moment where she does “Nessa, Doctor Dillamond,” and then sort of shouts out “Fiyero” while the orchestra is sawing away at one of the motifs. I think it’s structured very much like an aria but it’s built to get a great big hand at the end with a big belted last note. So it’s still very much musical theatre.

“No One Mourns the Wicked” —that’s just written for a soprano, the Glinda stuff. But yeah, it does get up there. It’s interesting, I’d written that before I really started working on the opera, and one of the things that has been interesting and surprising for me as I work with opera voices is that sometimes it’s easier for them to sing higher. In retrospect I might have actually set “No One Mourns the Wicked” higher. It might have been easier to hit the soprano notes than where they are.

Carol de Giere: I wanted to have you talk about what it’s like to work on a really long piece, and particularly with this creative concern of moving between the big forest and the trees. In your case you’re working on an individual song, but you have to keep in mind the entire piece: the musical, the opera, and the whole storyline. And you’ve quoted before from Tom Jones who wrote a book called Making Musicals. He said, “Everything is more important than anything.” So why do you think that’s true with operas and musicals. [Read all about books like Making Musicals on MusicalWriters.com]

Stephen Schwartz: I think it’s true for any dramatic work, whether it’s musical theatre or opera or musical movie or whatever. You can’t fall in love with any piece of it if it’s not serving the whole, which is what I think Tom Jones means by that. That’s why sometimes the best songs get cut from a musical because they’re not serving the whole story and the whole dramatic structure.

Carol de Giere: How do you find that out? You just watch it over time? I mean because you’re working in the part, but then…?

Stephen Schwartz: Yeah, exactly right. I think that you sort of go into this little section and you try to do something that will work for that particular moment, and of course you keep in mind the overall structure, but sometimes you’re wrong. And then when you step back and you hear it within the whole context, it doesn’t work, and then you have to lose it or change it.

Carol de Giere: Is that one reason why testing your work along the way is so important?

Stephen Schwartz's first opera, Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Stephen Schwartz: Absolutely. I mean for me it is. For instance with the opera now, I’m simply trying to get through a first draft of the first act, and I have no idea what this is going to sound like and feel like when it’s all put together. Obviously I know what the individual pieces are going to sound like, but what the cumulative effect is going to be, I have no idea.

And once I get through this draft, then I’m going to do a workshop where I’ll hear the first act, and I’m sure there are going to be a lot of unpleasant discoveries and rude awakenings, and then maybe there will be some stuff that works better than I anticipate. Obviously I’m trying to keep the whole in mind, and I tend to write motifically anyway, so there are things that keep recurring and themes that get reused and sometimes they’re sung and sometimes they’re played in what will be the orchestra while the character is singing something else, and the fact that motif is occurring gives you information about the emotional state of the character, and all that stuff.

Obviously that’s not accidental that that happens, but it’s very hard, at least for me, to have a real perception of what the cumulative effect of an entire act is until I hear it.

Stephen Schwartz

Carol de Giere

Welcome to the world of Broadway and film songwriter Stephen Schwartz – at least from my perspective. I started this blog while I was interviewing Stephen and his colleagues for my Schwartz biography,  Defying Gravity. On a few occasions I set aside time from our book interviews to catch Stephen’s comments for the public. Using Blog software seemed the easiest way to post these “Podcasts,” and so I started this blog several years ago. I’m restarting it now in 2011 after resolving some software issues.

In addition to posting the audio files, I’ll also be adding the latest news here while maintaining my regular website www.MusicalSchwartz.com – that provides background info on the musicals, like Godspell, Pippin, Wicked, and others.

If you have questions or comments, please send them by email to me at carol@musicalschwartz.com

If you’re not already subscribing to the quarterly newsletter, I recommend that you do. It’s free, and when he has time, Stephen Schwartz writes updates for it. http://www.musicalschwartz.com/newsletter.htm