Saturday 25 December 2010

The Sound of Musicals

Fiddler on the Roof is my favourite musical of all times. I am listening to the soundtrack now and it is so deeply touching that I am crying. My child does not understand how music can touch you so; ah! the innocence of youth.

Two musicals have been known to reduce me to tears: this and Les Miserables.

Fiddler on the Roof reminds me of my father. The way Topol played Tevye when he asks his wife if she loves him - it could have been my dad pestering my mum to say she loves him! Tevye's daughters drive him nuts, but he still loves them; he even forgives the one who elopes with a Christian boy (at least it is hinted he will come round to it.)

The things we put our parents through! I never knew what love meant till I had a child of my own.

In Les Mis, there is a scene where Fantine is singing about Cossette, the daughter whom she had to leave with some innkeepers thinking that this was for her girl's best interest. When she sings, I know she is destined never to see her child again and I feel the pain of separation so strongly that it rips my heart. I also cry at the policeman's realisation that all this time he had been persecuting a good man.

Some people do not enjoy musicals. I don't know why. It is just a step away from Opera. How better can you express human emotion other than with a song and a dance?

Time to dish up Christmas lunch now.

I hope you are all enjoying yourselves and don't worry about me crying. It's cathartic.

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