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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - MacDermot: The Human Comedy
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:
The proximity of the Fourth of July holiday calls for opera programming that is trueblue American. The Human Comedy (1984) is a particularly operatic piece of American popular musical theater. It has music, however, by a Canadian lyric theater composer, Terrence Galt MacDermot (b. 1928), with lyrics by Bill Dumaresq. Galt MacDermot gave the world Hair (1967), the hippie rock musical.
The Human Comedy is based on the novel by the same name by American author and playwright William Saroyan (1908-81). Saroyan's story is set in a small town in California called Ithaca in 1942, in an era in American life when people and goods travelled much more by rail than highway. We look in on the joys and sorrows of the Macauley family and other townspeople on the home front in World War Two. News arrives that one of Ithaca's soldier boys has been killed in action. Communications by telegraph figure importantly in the drama.
The Human Comedy is a heartfelt tribute to hometown America, with all the nostalgia that clings to the concept. It was produced on Broadway by Joseph Papp and the Shubert Brothers organization. Kilmarnock Records issued the Broadway cast recording on two compact discs. I had originally intended The Human Comedy for broadcast as a "harvest home" presentation on the Sunday before the Thanksgiving holiday of 2014 (Sunday, November 23), but that broadcast was preempted on short notice. I think this Broadway show will work perfectly well next to the other great American holiday, Independence Day.