The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #93.3: Musical Theater

General Introduction
– Skeleton crew
– Cold weather
– No listener feedback

Opera as Super-Art
– 16^th-century Italy
– Its roots in humanism and classicism
– Connections to tragedy
– Grappling with pessimism
– Wagner’s return to tragedy
– Gesamkunstwerk
– Changing tastes

The Development of Musical Theater
– Development from comic opera and operetta
– Differences between operetta and musical theater
– Show Boat!
– Yiddish theater
– The rise, fall, and second rise of the film musical

Rodgers and Hammerstein
– Why are they so popular?
– Development of the story
– Accessibility and classicism
– The songs and the characters
– The Golden Age of the Middlebrow

The Rock Opera
– Making rock and roll worse?
– The jukebox musical
– Les Miserables
– Emotion and musicals

Disney Movie Musicals
– A product of their times
– Back to Broadway
– Killing the musical
– Recitatives and Pixar

Biblical Musicals
– Biblical visibility, anyway
– Unorthodox
– The Prince of Egypt
– Concerns over Veggie Tales

Other Stuff
– The countercultural musical
– Marginalized voices and outcasts
– Emotivism and the popular kids
– Anti-nihilism
– Two cheers for the movie musical