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: Trend Task: Reading Record – Non-Fiction
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  BAND 5

Modern Musicals, from Art & Man magazine.

Introduction:
This passage of reading is called Modern Musicals.
It draws our attention to some of the highly enjoyable entertainment available through modern musical shows.
Text:
Beginning as a lightweight song-and-dance show, the musical has become increasingly sophisticated. Innovative composers, ingenious staging and technological advancements have put musicals on a par with opera and ballet as theatrical experiences and entertainment extravaganzas.

One of the most exhilaratingly popular works produced by the collaboration of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Using an extensive range of musical styles from rock to calypso, it retold the ancient biblical story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his deceitful brothers, won the favour of the Pharaoh, and became the ruler of Egypt. Joseph was the first work by Lloyd Webber and Rice, written in a mere three weeks for a school performance in 1968, Lasting only about 15 minutes, it roused so much enthusiasm and acclaim that it was eventually expanded and produced in London’s West End. It was then expanded again, and triumphantly staged on Broadway.

Lloyd Webber’s work has been musically adventurous and remarkably ambitious. His greatest innovation has been to create musicals that are sung through without any spoken dialogue, deliberately challenging comparison with traditional opera. This left little place for choreography, but an exception was Cats. Based on cat poems by TS Eliot, the show featured ingenious makeup and costumes to create feline characters such as Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, some raucously catty music, and inventive acrobatic dancing.

Of Lloyd Webber’s more recent works, the Phantom of the Opera was a spectacularly mounted tale of mystery and the macabre.

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