Jane Austen's third and most controversial novel follows Fanny Price's weaving about the social structure of her time. Like Emma, it's another classic portrait of the heart of a place and time. The female triumvirate of director, heroine, and composer must mean something because of the emotion evident in Barber's score. There's a gentle innocence all the way through that insists on Fanny's ...
Before Broadway was Disneyfied and Times Square became a mall, the best Broadway musicals were being written for Disney animated features by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman. Their songs for The Little Mermaid created the mold from which their even more popular work (Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin) would be cast. Almost every tune in Mermaid has its (slightly inferior) ...