Favorite Openings?
Favorite Openings?
Nettik
Featured Actor Joined: 6/4/10
#1Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 7:02pm
We have a topic floating around discussing favorite finales, but I didn't see one about favorite openings.
Mine are Lion King's "Circle of Life," Next to Normal's "Just Another Day," and Ragtime's "Prologue."
What about the rest of BWW?
#2Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 7:14pm
I think Sondheim shows generally have very memorable openings: (e.g. ASSASSINS, SWEENEY TODD, COMPANY, FOLLIES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, PASSION, PACIFIC OVERTURES, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, INTO THE WOODS etc.)
The opening for THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS was also pretty thrilling. My Favourites are probably "Just Another Day" (NEXT TO NORMAL) and "Willkommen" (CABARET).
Also, it may be too early to call but judging from that preview of CARRIE the new "In" looks like it will be a great opener.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
Updated On: 10/11/11 at 07:14 PM
#2Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 7:43pm
In the Heights, again.
A Little Night Music
How to Succeed
West Side Story Proulouge
Spiderman. The weaving is also so beautiful. Great opening scene, actually.
Updated On: 10/11/11 at 07:43 PM
michellek45
Leading Actor Joined: 5/20/11
#3Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 7:49pm
I second the Cabaret opening. It's almost chilling, in a certain way. In terms of setting the tone for the show, I think Hairspray's opening does an excellent job. A Little Night Music has a gorgeous opening number as well.
And just for sheer hilarity, there's the West Side Story movie opening, which I love because of the ~scandalously tough way the gang members snap their fingers, dance, and steal basketballs.
Updated On: 10/11/11 at 07:49 PM
#4Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 8:12pmmy favs: A Chorus Line, Company, Book of Mormon, Lion King, Ragtime, 42nd Street.
A Chorus Line revival played its final Broadway performance on August 17, 2008. The tour played its final performance on August 21, 2011. A new non-equity tour started in October 2012 played its final performance on March 23, 2013. Another non-equity tour launched on January 20, 2018. The tour ended its US run in Kansas City and then toured throughout Japan August & September 2018.
AwesomeDanny
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/30/09
#5Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 8:26pm
Ragtime
My Favorite Year
Parade
Follies
West Side Story
Sweeney Todd
Candide and Gypsy (for their overtures)
Katt1721
Swing Joined: 10/9/11
#6Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 8:26pm
- A Chorus Line
- Assassins
- Company
- Cabaret
- The Lion King
- And for sentimentality mostly, Phantom of the Opera. It was one of the first big musicals I saw on Broadway, so the moment the Overture starts playing and the chandelier rises was pretty cool
#7Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 8:33pm
The Lion King
Sweeney Todd
Hairspray
The Phantom of the Opera
Scratch and claw for every day you're worth!
Make them drag you screaming from life, keep dreaming
You'll live forever here on earth.
Gaveston2
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/11
#8Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:03pm
A LITLE NIGHT MUSIC famously has two openings. Are we choosing between them or counting them as one?
I think PIPPIN has to be mentioned here. The use of the light curtain may be old hat to us now, but it was pretty sensational in its day.
#9Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:04pmNeil Patrick Harris or Lewis Cleale
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
#10Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:47pm
The Lion King
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Phantom
Anything Goes
Chicago
Mary Poppins
The Book of Mormon
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
ggersten
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#11Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:48pm
A Chorus Line
Ragtime
Man of La Mancha
Oklahoma - perhaps hackneyed now, but starting off stage and building - can be wow!
The Wedding Singer
Nettik
Featured Actor Joined: 6/4/10
#12Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:09pm
I forgot Book of Mormon!
I also forgot bare: a pop opera's opening, "Epiphany," which hasn't been mentioned yet.
#13Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:16pm
Fiddler
In The Heights
A Chorus Line
West Side Story
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
sunnyleo
Swing Joined: 1/8/11
#14Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 12:27am
Opening scenes or just the songs themselves? In terms of great opening tunes.
In the heights
Avenue Q
Legally Blonde
For the younger set, Dear Edwina and Beauty and the Beast.
chewy5000
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/1/09
dreaming
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/24/09
#16Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 10:39am
Phantom will probably be the one that never ceases to take my breath away, no matter how many times I see it.
I also loved "The Circle of Life" in "The Lion King"-another that took my breath away.
For simpler openings, I love "Sunday in the Park With George", and "Follies"-the sense of anticipation is really exciting in the latter.
Inigomontoya
Featured Actor Joined: 6/24/07
#17Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 11:07am
Man in chair talk to audience in the dark
Something funny going on from Lucky stiff always makes me love the show even more
and Opening night/The king of Broadway from The Producers
#18Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 11:18am
Love those Curtain-Up-on-a-Million-Dancing-Feet openings:
Kiss Me Kate
42nd Street
A Chorus Line
(and the movie All That Jazz)!
And how about a ballet opening that actually tells a great story?:
On the Town
Carousel ('94 revival)
Guys and Dolls
West Side Story
A Little Night Music
But nothing I know beats a killer opening song:
Porgy and Bess
... Forum
Company
Pippin
Chicago
On the Twentieth Century
The Lion King
Ragtime
Parade
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#19Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 12:35pm
Carousel - one of the most beautiful pieces of American music ever written coupled with exquisite dance telling everyone that what we are about to see is going to be something of unparalleled sensitivity
South Pacific - when well played, pulls one into the central romance and who these two people are immediately - exquisitely quiet scene which benefits exponentially from following soaring overture
Forum - "Comedy Tonight" is the most influential opening number in musical theater history, a model of introducing a show's spirit
The Frogs - wit
On The Twentieth Century - excitement of a journey about to happen
Titanic - ditto plus irony
Zorba - "Life Is" is a damn good song
Pacific Overtures - overlooking the fact that Sondheim's central premise that "nothing happens" in pre-Perry Japan, in an effort to describe relative isolation from modernity, as if there was no history, conflict or complexity until the Americans landed, is downright idiotic and Occicentric, it's a fantastic opening number to a fantastic show
1776 - highly emotional, literate, sweetly tuneful and right in line with the fireworks about to happen
The Mikado - "If you want to know who we are..." what a great first line (as right as Hamlet's "Who's there?"), what a great melody, and what costumes!
Fiddler - community, star/hero, comedy, poignancy, theme, throughline, Bock, Stein, Harnick.... genius
Gypsy - brilliant overture, curtain up on sad show biz cattle call with cute kids, then bam - mother of all star entrances! pretty damn cool!
Wilmingtom
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/11
#21Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 1:48pmLi'l Abner, in which all the characters in Dogpatch are introduced.
jimmycurry01
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/05
#22Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 1:57pmMy immediate response to seeing the thread title was Sharon Stone in Fatal attraction... but to actually answer the question at hand it is Phantom of the Opera. The chandelier's rise to the ceiling gets me every time. I also found Lion King's opening to be quite impressive, and A Chrous Line's opening effective.
#23Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 3:14pm
Ragtime
Edwin Drood
Cabaret
I know you.
I know you.
I know you.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#24Favorite Openings?
Posted: 10/12/11 at 4:39pm
Because of this thread I can't get "Life Is" from Zorba out of my head, and worse, yet, there seem to be few videos of it online.
But I did find this one. The fact that it's in Polish is abou the the least unusual thing about it. For one thing, the role of The Leader appears to have been reenvisioned as an oversized Greek car ornament (Aphrodite? Minerva?)
"Zorba" the Pole
Updated On: 10/12/11 at 04:39 PM
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