Do I Hear A Waltz? review

Do I Hear A Waltz? Review - Broadway musical

Of the three nominations for Tony, the musical did not get any. Production got mixed reviews. One of them said that the show did not have the audacity to make the story more vivid, but, at the same time, the musical had everything to be considered as such. The authors did not overexert plot with unnecessary complications that could lead the viewer away from the story line.

Sondheim, who resigned from the creative team of the musical, some time weren’t speaking to Rodgers, who brought up this musical on Broadway, ignoring the obvious problems that were in production. Rodgers began to have paranoia during work when he thought that the creators of the musical, Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, were weaving intrigue conspiracy against him, trying to deprive the work and/or rights to everything written. He did not want to alter any of the songs, some of which Sondheim considered "mechanical" and soulless, that were involved in the libretto because of someone had to take their place. This approach does not allow the musical to become better and it was closed after quite controversial 220 performances.

On the one hand, the leading man – S. Franchi – for which this role was the debut on Broadway, so well performed his songs that all the critics only praised him, and a few tunes were even produced for television and he sang them there. Overall, the show was a springboard for his career. On the other hand, the work between the two main parties – Sondheim and Rodgers – was the work mostly only by Sondheim, who always offered his partner the performance of some innovations, but the hard and far-fetched Rodgers abandoned them. As a result, Sondheim realized that all the fruits of past cooperation of Rodgers with someone else were merit in many respects of his teammates, because he was just archconservative, in the words of Sondheim. Latter, for example, suggested that the female lead singer Leona shouldn’t sing until the very end, but Rodgers persistently rejected all of the innovations that seemed to him substandard.

It is nothing unusual here in the plot line – an affair which is whirled on vacation, where one of parts is interested nothing more but in money of another. Here, a victim is a young girl who was deceived and some amount of her money was lured out from her pocket. Pretty standard issue, but with not very well arrangement of the staging.
Last Update:April, 06th 2016