The holiday season is here, along with all of its attendant traditions: the drinking of hot chocolate, the exchanging of gifts, the singing of carols. Unfortunately, in Boston, there is a new holiday tradition that is about as welcome as a re-gifted fruitcake: using canned music in place of a live orchestra in the Rockettes roadshow.
For the second year in a row, “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular” in Boston will not be offering the rich, fully live experience of the Rockettes accompanied by a 35-piece orchestra, as in New York City. Instead, Boston’s Rockettes will be high-kicking along to lifeless recordings.
According to many reviewers, last years’ canned production deserved nothing from Santa but a lump of coal. The Boston Globe’s Terry Byrne decried it as “painfully bloated filler…with every vocal and every musical note prerecorded,” resulting in “a sameness to the sound that becomes increasingly boring.”
Another Globe columnist, Lawrence Harmon, complained that “Audiences would never sit still for animatronic Rockettes made of aluminum alloys and powered by hydraulics. Yet somehow they pay big bucks for the halfway experience of seeing live dancers absent the live musicians.”
Despite attempts at retooling the show this year with new sets and additional songs, critics continue to scold the “Spectacular” for its lack of live music. The Boston Herald’s Jenna Scherer writes that, “…for all its glitz and spectacle, it’s hard to get past the canned elements of the show. The instrumentals are all prerecorded, as is much of the singing. What sets theater apart from other forms of entertainment is that it’s live. Take that away, and you might as well be watching the show on TV.”
It is a shame that this show, which is marketed as a family experience, is depriving audiences of the magic of live music. Some of those involved may pocket a bit more by using recordings, but the kids of all ages who see this “halfway experience” will be poorer for it.
As we know, there are some producers who fervently hope the audience won’t notice when they swap out live music for tinny MP3s. That is why we ask that you please share this post with anyone you know who cares about music, and let those producers know how you feel. Only by sharing this information about shows that use synthetic or recorded music—and by voting with our feet and our wallets—can the music-loving audience take a real stand for keeping the music LIVE!
Save Live Music’s Facebook Fans Debate Piped In Music
A recent flurry of letters to the editor have been published in The New York Times in response to a piece detailing the increasingly common Broadway practice of having a live orchestra play in a side room, with the music “piped in” to the theater. Naturally, this has led to a lively discussion over at the Save Live Music on Broadway Facebook page. How does “piped in” music compare to seeing and hearing a live orchestra performing in the same auditorium as the cast and audience? Below are a few of the comments we have received so far:
Teri Booth thinks having the musicians in the theater is essential: “Live theatre has an ‘energy’ to it,” she says. “When [musicians] are removed from the actors and the audience, [they] are no longer part of— or contributors to—that experience.”
Facebook fan Liese Kaye M writes that “Yes, it is ideal [for the musicians] to be in the same area as the stage and performers, but if that’s not possible, a LIVE orchestra in another area of the theater is ALWAYS preferable to a recording.”
Ross Kratter writes, “If everything is going through the sound system, why should it matter where in the building it’s coming from if it’s being played live, and thus the musicians are keeping their jobs?”
Commenter Chris Dierl also thinks the amplification is the real issue: “For too long, sound designers have decided that natural sound is bad, because it is beyond their control. This has given us over-produced, radio-mixed orchestras”
We love hearing from informed theatregoers! Your passionate support is why so many theatre fans have signed our petition to keep Broadway live. (By the way, if you haven’t signed it yet, what are you waiting for? The petition is just to the right of this blog, and it only takes a minute to sign!). Your sharing of our posts in the social media universe is how we have built such a large and vibrant Facebook community. What do you think about this debate? Is amplification a problem in modern musicals? In addition to the threat of recordings replacing live music entirely, is piped-in music also an obstacle to your enjoyment of Broadway shows? Let us know!