Muzak Accompaniment II: Ballet Hero?

Courtesy of rutlo

As I mentioned in the last post, last Christmas’s production of the 1989 musical, The Wizard of Oz, irked cellist Adrian Bradbury because canned music accompanied it. Alongside his clarinetist brother and expert witness, the composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle, they testified to the court in a lawsuit against its venue, the Lowry Theatre, that the performance is akin to a costumed karaoke. If they would watch a ballet with the same technological type of musical accompaniment, they’d might as well compare the performance to popular video game Guitar Hero.

Amid a messed-up economy, that’s what orchestra musicians think as ballet companies pare down their budgets. Last month, the Texas Ballet Theater satiated its fundraising goal of $2 million, but there is some bad news – during the 2009-2010 season only, they will use muzak (what I affectionately call “canned music”) for all performances, and patrons will have to wait until the subsequent one to hear a live orchestra accompany tutu-clad women dancing en pointe.

From what I’ve read on the Web, the TBT are not the only ones facing ire from orchestra musicians thanks to the company creating false magic with a boom box in their performance of The Nutcracker. The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater also had its fill of using muzak to liven (no, deaden) a pas de deux in the 2005-2006 season. Their opening performance, Carmen, received outdoor protests from patrons and mainly, the company’s  resident orchestra. (They first contacted Musicians Union Local 60-471 to file a labor complaint National Labor Relations Board before joining voices with Akron, Ohio musicians, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, and others.) The public response to the ballet was lukewarm too, and one reviewer remarked that her viewing of it “was not much better than her  granddaughter’s dance recital, a venue where she expects no more than ‘canned’ music that is consistent with an amateurish performance.” The musicians have a website, Keep Pittsburgh Ballet Theater Music Live!, and I took the time to write what I think on the guestbook. I also looked at those who reviewed that season’s performances of The Nutcracker, and I agree with a lot of them.

As a child growing up in New Jersey, I went to see The Nutcracker at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn and Cinderella at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). I enjoyed those performances and found them so memorable, and it’s mostly due to the live orchestras in their pits below. If it weren’t for me seeing flutes, oboes, and French horns at a young age before the overture commences the flurry of tutus and jetes, I would had remarked that either performance would had been shoddy compared to my dance recitals at Montclair High. Adrian Bradbury, who criticized the Lowry Theatre’s production of The Wizard of Oz for using muzak, would had sat with me and basked in the auras of the two performances because the music accompaniment were both live!

To me, using muzak is perfectly fine during amateur dance recitals and some competitions but in a context of a professionally-staged ballet, I’d recommend that the companies would use it very sparingly, and I would deem a few “rock” ballets as exceptions. To see who agrees with me or not, I have contacted musical theater writers George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (Mary Poppins, Honk!),  Stephen Keeling (Maddie, Heidi), and personal favorite, Howard Goodall (The Dreaming, The Hired Man), to each have their say on the issue of piped music accompanying operas, professional musical theater performances, and ballets (I mean, not the rock ones, but cherished ones like the aforementioned Carmen) in my future posts. I’m not really picky on piped music, per se, but I truly believe that there is a time and place for them.

So, what do you think of the issue of piped music at the ballet, except “rock” ones? Please voice your say on it, if you have the chance.