Once upon a time, classical music, beautiful orchestrations and timeless love stories were the essence of musicals.
As many orchestras are down-sized or even eliminated in favor of pre-recorded music, the Lincoln Center’s touring revival of South Pacific, here through February 13 as part of the KeyBank Broadway Series, does the opposite.
It boasts one of the largest touring orchestras for a musical in 50 years, and uses the original orchestrations from the musical’s inception in 1949.
Because this is so unique, we decided to talk with the orchestra’s conductor, Lawrence Goldberg, for the South Pacific edition of the Broadway Buzz Newsletter.
“We’ve gone back to the original full orchestration, which has rarely ever been used because it is very large,” he said. “Some of the music has been restored, having not been available previously even if people wanted the full orchestrations. Some of the arrangements have been changed over the years, streamlined to suit smaller theaters.”
And there’s something else special about this production’s orchestra: 22 out of the 25 members are locals from each city the production tours in. Just yesterday (on opening night), Cleveland’s 22 musicians who are performing in the pit orchestra, had only a few hours to rehearse with the touring orchestra members before the curtain went up.
“A lot of our players will be people that play in symphony orchestras because the style of the score is more classical/operatic and less rhythm-based, not jazzy or rock-oriented,” Mr. Goldberg said. “Professional musicians are used to coming in and playing music that’s in front of them and being able to follow a conductor.”
Read our full interview with South Pacific conductor Lawrence Goldberg in our Broadway Buzz Newsletter. Also, read a story about him published in the Lorain Morning Journal.
For more information about South Pacific at PlayhouseSquare visit playhousesquare.org.
