Reading in Svenska Dagbladet today about the tendency for small or non-existant orchestras in musical theatre productions.
Next February a musical – “Sweet Charity” – with only pre-recorded music is scheduled for premiere in Stockholm. Already many productions have reduced bands and are using click-track solutions instead of live musicians for some instruments. Comments from the producers are along the lines that “ordinary people can’t hear the difference between live music and recorded”:
“Men publiken märker ingen skillnad om det är inspelat, det är ingen som protesterar, säger Hasse Wallman som producerar Sweet Charity.
Staffan Götestam, producenten bakom Skönheten och odjuret och Jesus Christ superstar, är inne på samma linje.
– Ingen vanlig människa kan höra skillnaden eftersom tekniken är så utvecklad.”
I also thought about the poor singers! But I guess most musical artists are used to the praxis of singing to backing tracks, or even to act without singing, because the singing is on the track, too. When I was in a church choir in Gothenburg, we were given the chance to sing at the opening of a World championship at a big arena, with some thousands of other choir singers. After all rehearsal of songs and choreography our enthusiastic live performance still was drowned by a recorded version with a small choir and musicians played over the enormous speakers at the arena, and broadcasted to the TV audience. sad, because the whole experience of the joined choir forces got lost…
Appalling, I hope the show flops . I have always maintaind that a tight band is essential in a musical, maybe even more so than the singing.
The public dosen't know this , of course. From the performer's point of view it is a disaster. Trying singing an accelerando to a backing track