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Elaine为《音乐剧魅影》撰写的序言 Musical theatre has a magic all of its own – it transcends all language barriers and can convey comedy, tragedy, happiness, sorrow, love and much more. It can deal with any subject matter – almost anything you can think of can be turned into a modern musical from the world of silent movies as depicted in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ which was based on the film of the same name to his innovative steam train musical ‘Starlight Express’. It can be humans cavorting about as ‘Cats’ or it can be about love and cultural differences between east and west as in Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘The King And I’. The beginnings of American musical theatre productions like the wonderful play ‘Pygmalion’ written by George Bernard Shaw became the glorious ‘My Fair Lady’ written by Lerner and Loewe. Then there was ‘South Pacific’ which became one of the best loved and most successful of the fruitful collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; it was based on stories in James Michener’s book ‘Tales of the South Pacific’; its story was set during World War II and dealt, in part, with racism, a subject not exactly commonplace in American musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Oklahoma’ (1943) marked the turning point in American musical theatre: it was the first fully integrated musical play, using every song and dance to develop the characters or the plot. In London the very British musical ‘Oliver’, adapted by Lionel Bart from Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Oliver Twist’ opened in 1960 and became one of Britain’s most successful musical theatre productions; it transferred to Broadway and, ever since, has enjoyed regular revivals worldwide. Oliver Twist’s famous cry, ‘Please sir, can I have some more’ was not just the tragic cry of a young orphan but the plea of theatre goers in the West End and on Broadway soon after it opened to rave reviews.I was fortunate to have been at the beginning of the modern British musical theatre explosion 25 years ago when Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber changed the face of British musical theatre with ‘Evita’ in which I originated the title role and sang such classic songs as ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ and ‘Another Suitcase In Another Hall’. I then worked with Andrew on ‘Cats’ in which, as Grizabella, I sang the hauntingly beautiful song ‘Memory’. And later as Norma Desmond in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ with the dramatic song telling the story of Norma’s return to Paramount Studios in ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’I was thrilled to be invited to sing at the groundbreaking introduction of musical theatre to China. It was such an honour for me to lead the company with the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Masterpiece’ live from the prestigious The Great Hall Of The People in Beijing and the Grand Theatre in Shanghai in September 2001 and to perform a programme of classic Andrew Lloyd Webber songs such as ‘Argentina’ and ‘Memory’ and ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’. My stay in China was a dream come true and of course I hope to visit again many more times.
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