• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Gramilano logo 2023

- dance, opera, photography...

  • HOME
  • POPULAR POSTS
    • DANCE
    • MUSIC & OPERA
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
    • DANCERS
    • SINGERS
  • MY PHOTOS
  • CONTACT

Goggi shines but Gypsy deludes in its Italian première

3 February 2013 by Gramilano Leave a Comment

Gyspy-Loretta-GoggiStyne and Sondheim's Gypsy is the Hamlet of the musical theatre: many try, many fail, but a success in the role adds a magical aura to a career. Thank goodness that Loretta Goggi, as Italy's first Rose, had the taste, guts, and believability to carry it off, because it was one of the few things that truly worked in this production.

Goggi certainly didn't give a perfect performance; her voice is in shreds and, at least on the last night of the Milan run, some pre-recorded passages were used to take the pressure off her ailing chords. But Goggi is one of those Minnelli-like ‘give it all you've got' performers, who moves you with her commitment, hits the emotional g-spot with her timing and acting skills, and her vocal technique keeps her tired voice in tune. Also to keep Rose sympathetic to an audience is notoriously difficult, but Goggi always wears her heart on her sleeve and is so fondly regarded from television appearances over a very long career, that she would be loveable playing Myra Hindley.

The other performers are weak, though sometimes likeable. Louise doesn't have the  pizzazz to be a credible burlesque star, June isn't flashy enough, and the four boys are sloppy in the choreography. Having said that, they are squeezed into one of the worst theatre in the world, Milan's Teatro Nuovo. It has a proscenium so low that choreographic lifts would be risky, and backstage must be a labyrinth to negotiate getting on and off stage. The singing isn't all it should be either, though the Gotta Getta Gimmick trio got an ovation from a perplexed audience.

Technical aspects were dodgy too. Heavy over-miking gave each gesture such as removing a coat or opening a letter a cartoon-like sound effect; the use of moving heads for lighting is tricky in a musical set in the '20s and '30s, and sometimes a little disco found its way onstage; and the scenery, though seemingly inspired by recent rivals, lacked coherence and flair.

The heart of the problem though is that the audience doesn't care about what's happening on stage, it just waits for the next musical number. Yet a musical that isn't sung-through should be able to exist as a play if the songs and dance numbers are removed. This is the starting point for the director and performers. When Herbie leaves, when Rose admits she pushed her girls because she just wanted to be noticed, when Louise is repeatedly ignored by her mother and then humiliatingly manipulated to go on stage and strip, we should be moved. We weren't.

Graham Spicer version
Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.

Related

Filed Under: musical theatre Tagged With: Gypsy, Sondheim

Reader Interactions

Post a comment...Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

SUBSCRIBE

Gramilano newsletter 2019

CATEGORIES

FOLLOW

  • 21,200 Subscribers
  • 22,866 Followers
  • 235k Followers
  • 602 Subscribers
  • 3,473 Followers
  • 20,023 Followers

NEWS

[Review] Eun-Me Ahn’s ‘Dragons – “Like a large plate of tasteless food”

A final bow for Russell Janzen: From Danseur Noble to creating Contemporary Ballet

World premiere of film of Kenneth MacMillan’s Sea of Troubles

Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands embarks on six-month UK tour

The Royal Ballet celebrates Bronislava Nijinska in free livestream

Phoenix Dance Theatre appoints Marcus Jarrell Willis as new artistic director

Prison cancels opera about violent gangster and gay composer Ivor Novello

Scottish Ballet’s Twice-Born double bill in rehearsal

SlowDancing/NYCB – hyper slow-motion films of New York City Ballet dancers in NYC

There’s a new Nutcracker in town – Drew McOnie’s vision will open at the Tuff Nutt Jazz Club

FEATURED POSTS

António Casalinho, photo by Nikita Alba crop

António Casalinho – Introducing the 17-year-old Portuguese Dancer

Francesco Gabriele Frola. Photo By Karolina Kuras, 2016 01

Meet Francesco Gabriele Frola — National Ballet of Canada and English National Ballet’s new Principal Dancer

How to stage a ballet… Maina Gielgud explains

Renata Scotto with Maria Callas

Renata Scotto vs Maria Callas – the 1970 fight at La Scala

Jakub Józef Orliński

In conversation with Jakub Józef Orliński

Romeo and Juliet with Sergei Polunin

Sergei Polunin on sex change, his new girlfriend, and manning up

Vittorio Grigolo’s new women’s shoes and a song for Hillary Clinton

Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov in cover art for the Romanza album

Interview with Anna Netrebko on her son, his autism and his abandonment by his father Erwin Schrott

Thomas Hampson by Jiyang Chen

Thomas Hampson answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition

You choose it out of Love! Dancing with the Khan-MacKay family

GRAMILANO

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan, aka ‘Gramilano’. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times. He wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.

Since 2022, Gramilano is pleased to welcome guest authors: Alisa Alekseeva, Paul Arrowsmith, Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, Jonathan Gray, Marina Harss, Matthew Paluch, Jann Parry, Graham Watts, and Deborah Weiss.

Referred-to-by

SEARCH

Related

Copyright © 2023 · Gramilano · All rights reserved

about me · contact me · privacy and cookies

Would you like to receive an email
whenever we publish a new post?

SUBSCRIBE