OKLAHOMA!

[Treaclewell]

When I was a child I enjoyed musicals with not much thought, but they had a lot of darkness to them. While holed up with a broken arm I've been revisiting, and just watched Oklahoma from the Proms. Very good, but what about the young men? Not just Jud Fry, to whom I shall return, but the rest. Avid customers for Ali Hakim's postcard merchandise, clients of burlesque and other things a gentleman never mentions, and that is almost presented as innocent. What do you expect when they ride for days on end with just a pony for a friend? It's the way things are. Jud, on the other hand is a very familiar figure. Now, he wouldn't be lurking in the smokehouse with his collection of pictures, but in room with wifi, and his longing for something real and his murderous response to rejection. He has already killed where he was turned down. Was he based on a real case of the time, an early incel? And why on earth did Laurey, whose gut was telling her he was a wrong'un, lead him on? I don't think I can watch it again.

We don't even get to meet his daughter - she's just a footnote in a song, where his son laments not having a brother (only a sister)

You’ve misunderstood, @BonfireLady . Hamilton doesn’t have a daughter, he sings to Philip, his son. Theodosia is Aaron Burr’s daughter (named after her mother).

It’s the two opponents singing of hope and promise to their newborn children at the time of the hope and promise of their newborn country.

Very true. Perfect day is not the message you think it is.

Well, about those sobbin' women, child me came away curious. I didn't want to ask and we didn't have an encyclopedia then so filed it for future reference. When i started Latin at school (Latin for today, alterec a la Jennings to Eating for two days) I saw lesson 20 was about the Sabine women, and looked forward to finding out. Sadly, due to a not entirely unrelated incident with Headmaster and a prefect, I left that school and Latin, but persuaded my parents to buy me a copy. Imagine my disappointment to find lesson 20 was now about a mater telling Secunda about a rotten apple. My interest in Latin died.

Yes, the duet is each of them singing to their respective child. It's one of my favourite songs, when both men are on the stage singing independently of each other (to their own child) and together (about what the future will hold).

Hamilton's daughter is only ever mentioned in passing e.g. by Philip in the song Take a Break:

Daddy, daddy, look
My name is Philip
I am a poet
I wrote this poem just to show it
And I just turned nine
You can write rhymes but you can't write mine
What!
I practice French and play piano with my mother
Uh-huh
I have a sister but I want a little brother
Okay
My daddy's trying to start America's bank
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq!
Bravo!

Yes, I know the lyrics (seen stage production 5 times etc, seen the filmed version 4 times, near word perfect on the soundtrack, and am a tedious Hamilton nerd of 8 years standing. My poor neighbours!). But you brought his daughter into it, and that doesn’t make sense to me.

I was saying that he isn’t gaslighting us, which your post claimed. He’s making the hopeful and optimistic promises to newborn Philip (as Burr does to Theodosia) that every new parent makes, and he means them - as does Burr. Just as the Constitution makes bold and hopeful promises (linked in the lyric “you will come of age with our young nation”) and is full of contradictions (“so is independence”)

But as Act 2 shows, what starts as hope, optimism and bold intentions gets bogged down in power struggles, pettiness and human weakness.

That’s not gaslighting, that’s failing to live up to your aspirations. We’re all guilty of that I think.

He betrays Eliza twice - first by sleeping with Maria and paying off her husband, then by making it public. And she punishes him (rightly so) by completely withdrawing from him. It’s only their combined grief that reunites them.

Hamilton is a self-serving asshole when it comes to infidelity, but I don’t think he’s guilty of what your post suggested.

I also don’t think his eldest daughter is remotely relevant - he had seven children, two of them girls, and only the elder Philip is a character in the musical. (After Philip’s death they had another son and called him Philip as well) The rest of the family are all offstage because they have no bearing on the story.

I don’t think there’s any reason to believe he’s a poor father. Workaholic, sure, but comes down to see the piano recital (and Eliza’s hilarious beatboxing) and clearly loves him very much.
Philip goes to him for advice - hell, the duel is because Philip’s so outraged about the slurs on his father’s name.

Christ, I definitely pay too much attention to that show.

Anyway, in the face of 7 Brides et al, Hamilton barely registers for deeply messed up sexual politics.

That is grim, but without the horrible dehumanising illustration it might be very slightly less grim.

not really-the story the song tells is disgusting.one of the few "how the hell did that ever happen?" things from history.

Oh my @lonelywater (on a non-musical theme I have a reprint of the very first ever Beano annual from 1940 which a much younger DD was delighted with until she discovered a character with a very racist name 😳).

Back to music classical doesn't escape. See most of Mozart particularly Zauberflote in which calm spiritual men are harangued melodically by the Queen of the Night.

Fair enough. History is littered with them.

yes, and this-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Entführung_aus_dem_Serail
is a bit dodgy too.

To be fair, I think she was just shocked to find he had children. Had he married their mother?

Can I strongly recommend the book "Underfoot in Show Business" by Helene Hanff (mainly known as author of" 84 Charing Cross Road")? There's quite a good description here - https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Underfoot-in-Show-Business-Audiobook/B0DDTZ7352 - but the point of recommending it is that she includes a description of her involvement in the very first Theatre Guild production of Oklahoma! which is absolutely hilarious. They were all totally convinced that it was going to be an absolute flop, because wholesome musicals about the birth of a new state with farmhands and cowboys just weren't fashionable, let alone dodgy subplots about perverts lusting after the heroine. I remember particularly the fact that they were all rolling their eyes when someone came up with the idea of adding an exclamation mark to the title.

Off to dig out my old copy for a re-read...

The main message of the Magic Flute is "cults are great", and "the mother who is upset because her ex kidnapped their daughter and brought her up in the cult and who now wants to rescue her brainwashed child? Yeah, she's EVIL. Cult leader guy is great". But that's also basically him being a Freemason. Its still a great Opera.

I know biscuits - I absolutely love the music but it is difficult to watch the whole opera when they kindly translate everything because music I have listened to happily for decades suddenly becomes WTF???

Its actually nice to watch as if its an opera about a dangerous cult performed through the perspective of the cult members themselves. So the amazing Aria the lady of the night gives (kill Sarastor or I will never ever love you again child) is actually what the daughter, completely absorbed in the cult as she is, is hearing her mother say. What the mother is actually saying could be completely different. But it still feels as emotionally true and engaging from that perspective as from the other.

oooo now there's a nice sophisticated take, biscuits do you hire yourself out for after opera drinkies and analysis?

We could set up an opera philosophy society

As long as it involves eating and drinking opportunities as well (I feel very reassured by your username 😃- other mumsnetters with an interest in eating and drinking opera are also most welcome.

very good. now pick the bones out of Bluebeards Castle.

Or Lulu.

The dangers of being a cool wife (usually regarding the husbands increasingly weird porn habit which will end in you being in a weird foursome relationship because "you said you would accept the darkest parts of me"). Tiresome.

Look, when she sang 'You make me want to shout..' it wasn't necessarily an expression of pain, it.....oh right. Berg. Right. I'll get my coat

I can still enjoy these old things but I do see them through different eyes now I'm older. The over the top stereotype of the black housekeeper in Tom and Jerry for example, later replaced with a stereotyped Irish housekeeper if I remember.

One I can't stand is the song More Than Words. It just sounds like a man pestering his gf for sex. It's whole premise is 'You would if you loved me ...prove you love me..'. It's yukky.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g4rn this is a very touching take on Oklahoma.