The community members of BROS shared with BmoreArt some insights on the hard work that goes into having so much fun. As stage manager Liz Richardson says, “We never hit the same mistake twice, we always hit a new mistake, but it’s always a spectacle, and always worth it.” It’s an elaborate feat-requiring dozens of collaborators-to generate such an original show. One would be hard-pressed not to nod along as the cast wails the lyrics. A live band featuring synths, electric guitars, fast, precise drumming, and an aerophone brings the show to life. The libretto includes more than a dozen original musical numbers written by six composers. This weekend you can join in on the fun and see their latest original rock opera, Glitterus: Dragon Rising, at the Zion Lutheran Church.Ī suite of passionate writers, musicians, stagehands, designers, and performers came together to produce Glitterus: Dragon Rising. In BROS shows, the audience’s vocal commentary enlivens the upbeat and uncanny production-in the vein of a midnight Rocky Horror Show. The exception can be found in productions of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, also known as BROS. These days, though, live audiences rarely have an opportunity to hoot and boo during theatrical performances. Audiences have been doing this for thousands of years, toward gladiators in the Colosseum, or everyday human dramas on the Jerry Springer show, or certain movies involving shower curtains and ski masks. Yelling at gruesome things can be daringly delightful. We also expand the concept to include not just strictly rock, but many styles of popular music that have evolved from rock n roll, including pop, soul, rap, alternative, folk and even electronica and dance music.There is a collective urge to scream right now. This could also be true of rock operas, that seem to find their biggest audiences in concert venues, clubs and alternative performance spaces.
Stephen Sondheim once famously said that the difference between opera and musical theater is where it is performed – if it is in an opera house, it is an opera, and if it is in a theater, it is musical theater. Some examples include “Hair”,”Rent”, “Grease”, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Spring Awakening”.Īt LA Rock Opera, we are committed to presenting rock operas in their original form as intended by the artists who create them, rather than use them as a framework to develop musical theater pieces aimed for Broadway. Often rock musical theater shows use the sounds of rock music in their scores, with the composition styles more closely following Broadway tradition and not classic pop and rock song forms, which do not easily translate into drama-centric interpretation and staging. The most famous example of this is probably “Jesus Christ Superstar” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Time Rice, which started as a concept album, and then was developed into a Broadway musical. Some rock operas have been transformed into musical theater pieces, with the demands of the story and staging requiring re-writing the music to service the plot. Even in sung-through musicals, the songs are always in service of the plot of the story, while in rock opera, the plot could be vague, and (intentionally) open to interpretation. In essence a rock opera (like a traditional opera) is a story that is told entirely through singing, while musical theater usually has spoken dialog as well as songs. We are often asked what is the difference between rock opera and rock musical theater. Some examples would be “Aqualung” and “Thick As a Brick” by Jethro Tull, “Berlin” by Lou Reed and “OK Computer” by Radiohead. For this reason, rock operas are often considered a subset of the concept album, and although many concept albums do not follow a specific story line, the ones that do follow a narrative blur the lines between rock opera and concept album even more. Many rock operas have never been staged as theatrical works, and exist only as audio musical works. The songs are usually presented in the form of a record album unified by a common theme or narrative. Simply put, a rock opera is a work of rock music that presents a dramatic story told over multiple songs in the traditional manner of opera.
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