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Bombay Dreams

Topic started by Sajeev Raj (@ 210.195.144.64) on Sat Apr 13 22:31:21 EDT 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Bombay Dreams is releasing in June 2002

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Kupps (@ 156.153.255.134) on: Mon Jun 3 08:05:15 EDT 2002
  
  he has taken the trouble to not only go for the show
  
  i didn't know even you are ARR basher :-) what a bad remark -- going to the show is troubling oneself :-))
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 156.153.255.134) on: Mon Jun 3 08:07:50 EDT 2002
  
  CF,
  
  honestly, i couldn't get you what might be the difference in Stage Play and cinema as far as music, esp, songs making is concerned?
  
  
• From: ROTFL (@ 203.106.139.71) on: Mon Jun 3 08:10:35 EDT 2002
  
  Kupps
  Enna ippadi kadikkareenga? :)
  
  
• From: "'appaavi' goyindhanaaga" Kupps (@ 156.153.255.134) on: Mon Jun 3 08:28:54 EDT 2002
  
  illa ROTFL
  
  mine was a geniune question to CF
  
  
• From: ROTFL (@ 203.106.139.71) on: Mon Jun 3 08:31:34 EDT 2002
  
  Kadikku mele kadiyappa
  Pothumadaa saami
  
  :)
  
  
• From: Common Friend (@ 203.197.141.186) on: Mon Jun 3 12:44:17 EDT 2002
  
  Let me tell you what would have been the diff. I am no expert.
  In films , you have a definite actors,who just move their jaws (and hips ofcourse). Now when you compose a song for the film, there are various other elements that you can show apart from hero and heroine moving their jaws (and hips ofcourse). Of instance, they can show the other dancers, the land scape the beautiful sets and many other thing. There are close up and long shots, those song part which need not necessaryly be a part of the romance may also be in one duet.
  
  In stage play, the actors have to sing for them selves. They should not only move their jaws (and may be hips ofcourse) but also, open up their vocal chord. Here they have to be in the stage thru out and the songs structure has to be less complicative so that every bodies presense (singers, actors and dancers) in the stage looks natural and in with the song. To compose a non complicative song for a stage is probably most complicative one. I feel so. You have to compose and recompose to make every thing synchronise with that. There might be dialogs in between and what not. The dance steps have to be judicious enough as it is a live concert and you do not have a retake here. So, ARR has been involved with the project thru out and he had to see that every body sings his song perfectly and he is able to adjust his music according to actors.
  
  AIMHO. Experts can comment on this and I am ready to accept any thing that is right.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Mon Jun 3 13:12:39 EDT 2002
  
  I have seen only one musical so far (the beauty and the best). I could not get tickets for 'Phantom of the opera' so I went to this one. But I have heard Phantom on CDs and watched the movie version of Evita (*ing Madonna) on DVD. All these are orchestrated using a full-fledged orchestra. Actually, there is a orchestra playing live near the stage. I dont understand why there is minimal WCM in BD. I listened to the samples in the BD Website and one of the songs goes into a percussionless interlude (just like in our film songs).
  BTW, I think musicals are very comparable to our film music ..only ARR's music is different. But he is the one doing music for the musicals !!!! :) :) Good for him !!
  
  
• From: hari (@ 143.182.246.21) on: Mon Jun 3 14:14:24 EDT 2002
  
  It seems unrealistic that music for this musical is live!
  
  For a classical opera, u can imagine live singing by the actors/actresses, and the live orchestra playing (with their violins and horns and trumpets) every night whenever the opera is staged. The only opera(s) I saw were in the movie "Amadeus", and of course that was 200 years back. Im assuming today's staging of classical operas also work the same way, with live singing and orchestration. The composer/conductor of course has to be present for every staging I guess... conducting the orchestra.
  
  For a musical with techno music, is it possible for Rahman to be present there every night the musical is staged, conducting whatever elements of the orchestra there are, and adjusting reverb and other qualities of the sounds generated from the synthesiser? I mean, most of the instrumentation is not classical, as in its not acoustic/drum pad drumming, or live violins etc... its computer-generated sound. And the "quality" of techno music-sound depends a great deal on post processing AFAIK.
  
  yaaro or someone else who watched the show - can u let us know how the music was "played"? I am very interested in finding out.
  
  
• From: O(pi)nion (@ 209.130.217.102) on: Mon Jun 3 14:35:17 EDT 2002
  
  ARR is the composer for BD not the conductor.
  A composer need not be present while his music is being conducted. Is it something like reading a book, do you expect the writer to be present each time when his book is being read. :)
  
  Secondly I do not know why there is so much noise here on BombayDreams.
  
  Person investing time and money on this project is not just an aveage producer, ALW knows the audience so well, I dont know how many here have seen a broadway show, from my experience I tell you broadway musical is very sophisticated, a big time team work. ALW is one of the best!,
  it needs some real good stuff to stick on with this guy. A Composer (ARR) cannot just escape the task, he has to work hard. I am sure ARR is capable of this.
  
  It is high time here that we need to see brighter side, with an open mind we need to belive this fact, an artist from India has reached a stage , it is his achivement.It our duty to clap for him.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Mon Jun 3 14:58:45 EDT 2002
  
  O(pi)nion, you are right. ALW is a big name in musicals. If he has placed his bets on ARR it is a big honor. I think, just like, the indian audience welcomed a different approach to songs from the current MDs, probably ALW also thinks he needs to provide a different style in his musicals, which is more POPish (which is the trend now). This might be the reason for him to opt for ARR. How long can his WCM style approach go on ? I guess, this is my opinion.
  Hari, I think, ARR has already converted his songs to live/acoustic versions. For eg, shakalakha baby has a real drum, instead of the 'synth' sounding drum machines.
  Yes, the beauty and the beast, which is a Broadway Musical, had live orchestra. The seats for the musicals cost more if you are close to the stage (they are called orchestra seats or something like that). Reverb is not a big deal, even street musicians have them. But it might be tricky to do fade out/fade in etc. Well..you never know there might be hardware to do all this easily.
  
  
• From: O(pi)nion (@ 209.130.217.102) on: Mon Jun 3 15:49:30 EDT 2002
  
  guys, a postive view, who knows in the future ALW might look for more indian musicians for his next project or ALW is a trend setter, he has followers, his followers might also look for indian musicians. we all know that we sill have "bests" in indian music scene to be exploited by Western world. How many of you agree with me ? :)
  
  
• From: Sathya (@ 24.191.186.191) on: Mon Jun 3 16:38:46 EDT 2002
  
  From Hindu Monday June3 (section LIFE , Coimbatore stories)
  
  
  Rahman to thrill UK fans
  
  EVEN WHILE music cassettes and audio compact discs of the trail-blazing A. R. Rahman continue to be hot favourites in music shops in Coimbatore, his fans have yet another reason to celebrate.
  
  Rahman's ``Bombay Dreams'', a stage musical, is scheduled to open at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre on June 19, with previews from May 31. Needless to say, Rahman's fans are proud that the music maestro has teamed up with noted composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, to create the stage musical.
  
  Incidentally, Webber is the one who teamed up with Tim Rice to thrill fans of stage musicals with that popular production ``Jesus Christ Superstar'', way back in 1970.
  
  Though very few music fans down South would agree with the view that Rahman belongs more to Bollywood than to Kollywood, that's more or less how he's being seen in London, where ``Bombay Dreams'' is the ``only new musical of the 2002 season''.
  
  Though the event has created few ripples in the music scene in the city so far, Rahman's die-hard fans are all agog to see how the United Kingdom is going to receive the new stage musical.
  
  However, there's no doubt that in U.K's cultural scene, there's a lot of excitement over the master composer who bagged the National Film Award for his first film score in ``Roja''.
  
  Come to think of it, music did much for Mani Ratnam's ``Roja'', a film that stirred the patriotic spirit as much as it celebrated the single-handed efforts of a young woman to get her husband out of the clutches of terrorists.
  
  British Council, Chennai, which is going to participate in the Coimbatore Career Fair from June 6 to 9 at the CODISSIA Trade Fair Complex in Coimbatore, has featured Rahman's achievement in its June issue of ``Connecting'', a booklet containing news from South India.
  
  In a message to India, Webber lauds the work of Rahman and observes, ``the genre that I love with total passion needs an infusion of new blood urgently, I believe.''
  
  Commending Rahman's extensive and varied work, Webber says he himself would be ``quietly amused'' if history was to judge that his ``real achievement'' had been ``to bring A.R. Rahman into musical theatre'', so that it ``ignited a new era of life and competition in the genre''.
  
  Looking back, it's significant to note that collaboration in music is not new to Rahman, who's now got something like 25 hit singles in just eight films.
  
  He's been there with people like L. Shankar, Zakir Hussain, David Bryne and Apache Indian.
  
  As a music director who started at the bottom rung of the ladder and worked his way up, Rahman has established himself as a powerful force when it comes to fusing music from different genres and traditions.
  
  There's no doubt that Rahman has made fans for himself around the world with his music in Tamil films such as Roja, Puthiya Mugam, Gentleman, Kizhakku Seemaiyile, Duet, Kadhalan, Bombay, May Maadham, Indian and Love Birds.
  
  Now is the right time to move on, and gain fans of other genres of music too.
  
  
  By A. A. Michael Raj
  
  
  in Coimbatore
  
  
  
  
• From: yaaro (@ 213.121.212.121) on: Mon Jun 3 19:24:29 EDT 2002
  
  I have been just going thru the booklet which they gave when I went for BD.lot of big names in the theatre scene have been involved.ALW is THE big name in theatre scene and anyone will bend over backwards to keep him happy.
  ARR is described as Indian mozart!excuse me...!:-)
  This story may be new to the britishers.But chaps,If anyone is keen to watch the Musicaal you will be absolutely flabbergasted by the sheer stupidity of the story-ABSOLUTELY ordinary story from the indian point of view-the type of story ARR will not even touch with a barge pole if asked to do the music in a movie-a story which we will not go on a sunday evening show even if someone gives a free ticket for the choicest seats in the best cinema theatre.That is the biggest weakness of this venture from an Indian point of view-instead of asking shekar kapoor,ALW must have asked the likes of MR or shankar(as much as I dislike him) for some advice who do good musicals-No wonder the hindujas refused to give financial assistance.
  -ALW is worth 100's of millions of pounds-hereally does not need assistance-for god's sake!
  -they did not ask him to bring ARR to london
  -they must have asked for the story -once they heard the story,they must have decided not to lend any support to the venture.
  I swear on IR's music when I say this-If you chaps had a chance to see this venture,however much you love ARR's music,you will come out shaking your head at what convinced ARR to do music for this sheer imbecile story(again,I stress from the Indian point of view)
  I said this about MR once-you cannot dine on rubbish because it is served in the splendour of a five star restaurent.same for ALW.from an Indian point of view this story line is the pits-not fit for even a SP muthraman movie of late 70's.
  was there live orchestra-I dont think so.except for couple of percussionists on either side of stage I did not see anyone else.
  
  
• From: zmcqdv kknxc vdaadq (@ 172.157.174.203) on: Mon Jun 3 19:55:51 EDT 2002
  
  yaaro, western stage musicals are not complicated, usually the story line is thin, but the reliance is on the music of a specific format, which usually sounds like the songs of ARR in Minsara Kanavu - Ooh Lala and Strawberry Kanney. It is a very exciting genre and I've seen one in my MBA days at the school itself and it was just very good - the moving stages, props, the very slick dialogus and acting, top professionalism even for a college production. you won't know 2 hours go by, because of the moving stage & props and then the fantastic music with the change of keys or scale like the songs mentioned above.
  
  Even if tunes are not very good, somehow it sound exciting on the stage. you can see why because of the characters, colorful costumes, the props and so on. stage musicals of this level is a very tough proposition for our Indian production values. ARR is a musicals man, no doubt about that, i saw it coming much before ALW. He can bring this art to India, with the kind of money he could possibly make abroad.
  
  But, i felt disappointed to know that ARR spent 3 years on this, just to give his old songs to this musical. Or, is it that 'previews' of musicals simply do not reveal all the songs and the surprises in store kept for later? Do you have an idea on this one. Is it only 8 songs, or there will be more when the actual show commences? because, all along ALW was saying that 70% is new and 30% is only old, while Rahman said 80% is new because he wanted only new songs in it?
  
  Indians are not familiar with stage musicals, so those hindujas would not have felt interested.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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