6. The Magical Melodies of Andrew Lloyd Webber

No figure in the history of stage musicals can match the magic touch of Britain’s own Andrew Lloyd Webber, a composer with a success rate second to none, an entrepreneur whose shows have dominated the West End and Broadway stages for more than two decades.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was born in London on 22^nd March 1948. He came from a musical family: his father was an accomplished organist and composer who taught at the Royal College of Music in London, and his mother was a choir singer. The young Lloyd Webber studied several instruments, and became particularly proficient on the piano. As a small child his favourite pastime was presenting shows with an elaborate toy theatre, and he was also interested in cats and trains. All three of those pastimes were to serve him well in the future.

From an early age he was taken to the theatre and became influenced by the work of the great American composers, particularly Richard Rodgers. In 1965, while still attending Westminster school, and just before going up to Oxford, he was introduced to Tim Rice who was more than three years older than him, and apparently destined for a career in law. Rice was already a pretty good lyricist and had written several songs in an effort to supplement his real ambition which was to be a pop singer. Lloyd Webber too, had composed several pieces of his own, and during the next two years they collaborated on numerous songs and one show, “The Like of Us”, which was based on the life of the Victorian philanthropist Dr Barnardo. However, their work met with widespread apathy until March 1968 when they dashed off a “little something” to entertain the pupils at an end-of-term concert at Colet Court School in London.

The “little something” was, of course, “Joseph and amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, and at that stage it was only about 15 minutes long. Over the next few years it was presented at a variety of venues including the Central Hall, Westminster, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Edinburgh Festival and the Haymarket Ice Rink, where it aroused a good deal of interest and attention.

By the time “Joseph” reached the West End in 1973, Lloyd Webber and Rice had conceived another biblical musical, “Jesus Christ Superstar”. This show began its life as a concept album which was released first in America where it spent three weeks at the top of the chart in 1971. In October of that year a stage production opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway, and stayed there for nearly two years. However, that achievement paled in comparison with the show’s London run of 3,358 performances (eight years) at the Palace Theatre, during which the versatile actor-singer Paul Nicholas, confirmed the star qualities he had displayed in “Hair” a few years earlier. It was entirely appropriate that he should again play the leading role of Jesus in the show’s enormously successful 20^th-anniversary tour of the UK in 1992. Several of the songs from the exciting score are on this Collection, including Everything’s Alright, King Herod’s song, Hosanna, and the heartrending ballad, I Don’t Know How To Love Him, which is sung by someone who is something of a superstar herself, Petula Clark, who had a UK hit with it back in 1972.

The ingenious idea of familiarising potential audiences for a stage musical by issuing a concept studio album containing superior versions of most of the songs, had been pioneered by Lloyd Webber and Rice with “Jesus Christ superstar”. In 1976 they did it again with “Evita”, and in early 1977 the album entered the charts, reaching number 4, and stayed there for 35 weeks. It produced one of the partnership’s greatest songs, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina. “Evita”, which was based on the life of Eva Peron, actress wife of the Argentinian dictator Juan Peron, eventually made its debut at the Prince Edward Theatre in June 1978. The show’s score produced two other contrasting hits: the powerful Oh What A Circus and the sad and lonely ballad, another Suitcase In Another Hall, which was successful for Barbara Dickson. “Evita” ran for an incredible seven years and eight months, a total of 2,900 performances and took an estimated 20 pounds million at the box office. The London production won Laurence Oliver Awards for Musical of the Year and Performance of the Year in a Musical (Elaine Paige); and the Broadway version, which ran for 1,568 performances, collected most of the main awards – the New York Drama Critics, Drama Desk, LA Critics Circle – and seven Tonys, including best musical, score, book, actress (Patti LuPone) and director (Harold Prince). The cast album also won a Grammy.

Lloyd Webber’s next venture was a project which he called “Cats”. It was, he explained, a musical adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems, “Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats and other writings. The show would be co-produced by him, through his newly formed Really Useful Company, and the new theatrical wunderkind, Cameron Mackintosh. Their inspired choice as director was Trevor Nunn of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was a daring and imaginative combination, which, despite expressions of disbelief from various sections of the theatrical community and the media, worked from the start. Mackintosh’s flair for flamboyant merchandising and publicity ensured that “Cats’ had an advance ticket sale of over 3 million pounds when it opened at the New London Theatre in May 1981. To date, John Napier’s “rubbish tip” set, which has been called “a triumph of pop sculpture worthy of the most far-out gallery in Soho”, is still there at the New London, and similar collections of tin cans assorted garbage litter the stage of theatres throughout the world, including the Winter Garden in New York, where “Cats”, with its legend “Now And Forever”, is well on the way to overtaking “A Chorus Line” as the longest-running production (musical or otherwise) in Broadway history. It almost goes without saying that “Cats” has held the record for the longest-running London musical for quite some time. As for awards, in Britain there were Evening Standard and Laurence Oliver Awards for best musical, and another Oliver for outstanding achievement of 1981 in musicals, which went to the brilliant choreographer Gillian Lynne.

Abroad, “Cats” collected Moliere and Drama Desk awards, seven 1983 Tonys for best musical, book, score, supporting actress (Betty Buckley), director (Trevor Nunn), lighting (David Hersey) and costumes (John Napier), and a Grammy. The original all-star London cast included Paul Nicholas, Brian Blessed, Srah Brightman, Bonnie Langford and Wayne Sleep. Most of the songs, with lyrics culled from the writings of T.S. Eliot, are named after the various cat characters, such as Old Deuteronomy, Mr Mistoffelees, Rum Tum Tugger, and so on. The show’s big hit song was Memory, the lyric of which is credited to T.S. Eliot and Trevor Nunn. It has been estimated that there have been well over 1,000 different recorded versions of this lovely, poignant ballad, but the impassioned treatment it receives from Shirley Bassey on this set ranks with the best of them. One of the feline members of the show’s cast was the 20-yearold Sarah Brightman, who eventually became Lloyd Webber’s wife, and introduced many of his loveliest songs. Even after they were divorced in 1990 their professional relationship continued to flourish, and there is a possibility that the composer will write a film or stage musical based on the life of the delightful 30s actress, Jessie Matthews, in which Sarah Brightman will play the lead.

After utilising one of his boyhood interests, cats, as the inspiration for the most lucrative stage musical so far (world-wide income of 587 million pounds estimated in 1991), Andrew Lloyd Webber turned to his other early fascination, trains. “Starlight Express”, began its journey at the Apollo Victoria in March 1984. First-night audiences were somewhat bewildered to discover that the theatre’s auditorium had been restructured and fitted out with a complicated network of swivelling bridges and metal tracks on which roller-skating members of the cast, masquerading as trains with names such as Rusty, Greaseball and Dinah, careered at great speed. Rusty (Ray Shell), the little steam locomotive, finally hitches up with Pearl (Stephanie Lawrence), the consenting carriage, in spite of opposition from the dreaded modern trains in a spectacular production which was designed by John Napier and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, the creator of the popular dance group, Hot Gossip. Richard Stilgoe, the accomplished television entertainer, was Lloyd Webber’s lyricist and librettist this time, but no obvious chart hits emerged, although there were several highly amusing and engaging numbers in a variety of musical styles, such as Only You, Pumping Iron, Rolling Stock and the title song, all of which are on this Collection. The original “Starlight Express” continued to roll until April 1992 when it became the second longest-running London musical ever. Shortly afterwards, in November of that year, it was totally revamped and recast, with a revised book and five additional songs. One of those, the charming Next Time You Fall In Love, with a lyric by Don Black, is sung here by the show’s original female lead, Stephanie Lawrence. In September 1993, “starlight Express” became the first big-time musical to be presented in the US gambling city of Las Vegas. For the occasion, the famous Showroom of the Hilton Hotel, where legendary figures such as Elvis Presley, Bill Cosby and Ann-Margret used to regularly appear, increased its seating capacity from 1,400 to 1,600 and was totally refurbished to receive the railways.

After composing the highly contemporary, pop-inclined score of “Starlight Express”, Lloyd Webber turned to a different, far more serious work. “Requiem”, which was inspired by his father’s death, included the beautiful and moving Pie Jesu, for which Lloyd Webber won a Grammy for best new classical composition.

By this stage in Lloyd Webber’s career, it seemed that anyone playing a major role in any of his projects, either on or off stage, could guarantee that their own careers would receive an enormous boost. Their was the case with Michael Crawford who hit the heights during the 70s in the highly popular television comedy series “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em”, and the smash-hit stage musical “Billy”. By the mid-80s Crawford’s career was more or less becalmed until one day, when Lloyd Webber was collecting Sarah Brightman from her singing lesson, he heard the actor, who shared the same teacher, exercising his vocal cords. And that is how Michael Crawford came to costar with Sarah Brightman in perhaps the most highly regarded and critically acclaimed Lloyd Webber musical to date “The Phantom of the Opera”, which opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in October 1986. The tragic story of the demented and disfigured Phantom and his love for the beautiful actress, Christine, gave Lloyd Webber the opportunity to create his most romantic score so far, full of soaring melodies and majestic themes. Both Crawford and Brightman were superb, and several of the most exquisite and beautiful ballads (with lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe) burned into the memory. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, All I Ask Of You and The Phantom Of The Opera all became popular favourites, while Michael Crawford entered the Top 10 with the haunting The Music Of The Night. It’s marvellous to Hear Crawford sing that lovely ballad again on this Collection along with The Phantom Of The Opera and All Ask Of You. After receiving the 1985 Laurence Olivier Award for the outstanding performance by an actor in a musical (which itself won Oliver and Evening Standard awards), Crawford re-created his masked role for the 1988 Broadway production. As in London, the whole affair was a triumph with full houses every night, and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Awards, and seven Tonys including best musical and actor (Crawford). Since that time Michael Crawford has become known in America as “the last matinee idol of the decade”, and toured with a large orchestra in a concert production of “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber”. The composer’s magic touch” certainly worked for Michael Crawford.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is a shrewd man – he is also a perfectionist. Straight away he realised that the Los Angeles “Sunset Boulevard” was superior in several ways to the original London production, particularly in its general look – the colours and textures of the show. As soon as he returned to London, he quietly removed a block of tickets from the Adelphi’s computer so that when the time was right, changes could be made. That time came in March 1994 when “Sunset Boulevard’ closed for three weeks at a cost of 1 million pounds in ticket sales so that what Lloyd Webber himself called “his artistic pride’ could be satisfied. Such a move is thought to be unprecedented in the history of the London theatre. The closure coincided with the departure of Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson. LuPone was replaced by Betty Buckley who won a Tony Award for her role as Grizabella in the 1981 New York production of “Cats”. At the time of writing, the identity of the lucky lady who will play the lead in the Broadway version of “Sunset Boulevard” is anybody’s guess, but there are firm reports of several star actresses enrolling for singing lessons – it is acknowledged as the role of a lifetime.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s own future is also unclear at this stage, but no doubt he has something exciting in the pipeline.

In view of the above, when another America publication, the trade paper Variety, recently posed the question: “Andrew Lloyd Webber: legit immortal or flash in the pan?”, the answer seemed rather obvious.

TASK:

4. Answer the questions:

1. When was Webber born?

2. What family did he come from?

3. What was his childhood?

4. What biblical musicals did he conceive?

5. When did the album ”Evita” enter the charts? What is it about?

6. Could you tell anything about “Cats”?

7. What Awards did “Cats” collect?

8. When and where was “the Phantom of the Opera” opened?

5. Retell the text.

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