With its 60-year history, "South Pacific" remains a rare gem in the canon of musical theater.
Its staying power is such that almost everyone has an opinion about it. Does it reflect the worst elements of naivete, with its overriding emphasis on love-at-first-sight on an exotic island? Or does it mark the moment musicals came of age, with its open confrontation of racism amid one of the most vicious wars ever fought?
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‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’
The touring show of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical, based on the 2008 Tony Award-wining production.
When » Jan. 3-8: Tuesday-Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 1 and 6:30 p.m.
Where » Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City.
Info » $32-$57.50 (plus service/facility fees); at 801-355-ARTS or ArtTix.org.
Also » Student discounts available at Capitol Theatre box office; groups of 15 or more at 801-703-2057.
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That’s a fool’s choice, says Marcelo Guzzo, the opera-trained baritone and Uruguay native who plays Emile de Becque in the touring production that opens at Capitol Theatre on Jan. 3. He calls the musical a perfect marriage of optimistic charm and hard-edged social realism, and all the more powerful for it.
Guzzo has personal reasons for defending the plot catalyst of love-at-first-sight. He first learned "Some Enchanted Evening" under the instruction of famed Italian-American soprano Anna Moffo. And he met his wife of two years while shopping the aisles of a New York City grocery store.
"When the song ends with ‘Once you have found her/Never let her go,’ I can relate on a very real level," Guzzo said. "Sometimes the front of your life makes sense only when you look back. ‘South Pacific’ is that kind of musical, and more."
The touring show is based on the 2008 Lincoln Center revival, which won seven Tony Awards and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revival. The show’s contextual approach, under the direction of Bartlett Sher, noted for such shows as "The Light in the Piazza" and "Awake and Sing!", has been praised for the way it pushes the context of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic forward into realist territory, yet honors the musical’s past.
At the heart of the story are the dual-track romances of French plantation owner Emile and U.S. Navy nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush, in contrast with U.S. Marine Lt. Joseph Cable and island girl Liat. With the U.S. Pacific campaign against Japan playing out in the background, suspense fuels the story line as well.
More than a few 1949 audiences were taken aback at how unsparing Oscar Hammerstein was regarding racism. The song "You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught," which held upbringing and culture responsible for bigotry, was criticized in some quarters as "pro-communist." In truth, racism was a concern of Hammerstein’s since his 1927 "Show Boat."
The musical’s historical outlines become especially clear in this production, says Katie Reid, who plays Nellie, Emile’s partner in mutual infatuation.
"It’s so much more about the people and circumstances, making it alive and real, but with all the same great songs and characters," Reid said by phone from her hometown of Denver. "Rodgers and Hammerstein really saw that after WW II the world would never be the same."
It was in 1948 that the pair created the character of Nellie, a young woman from Little Rock who would struggle with racism, nine years before the 1957 controversy over the Little Rock Nine, African-American students integrated into the city’s Central High School.
Striking the right proportion of allegory and entertainment value within a musical is difficult for writers and lyricists. Guzzo said Rodgers and Hammerstein did it best in "South Pacific" by creating melodic rivers of ebb and flow that give just enough cushion to absorb the conflict of the characters’ personal struggles.
With his opera training and recent roles in productions of "Carmen," "La bohème" and "Le Nozze di Figaro," Guzzo noted how musicals are different from classical productions, in that theatergoers become"a third partner."
"Timing and energy translates directly to the dialogue with a musical," Guzzo said. "With ‘South Pacific’ you can feel the beat of the audience."
Twitter: @artsalt
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