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Article: The church that Jerry built: or, how tabloid TV became America's true religion.(Jerry Springer--The Opera)(Theater review)
- Article from:
- American Theatre
- Article date:
- September 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Theatre Communications Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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in Jerry Springer--The Opera, lowbrow marries highbrow--and what issues from their union is anything but middlebrow. Beginning with the two halves of the show's title, "high" and "low" function as the production's yin and yang, pushing and pulling the audience in deliriously contradictory directions.
This tug of war gets underway the moment the house lights go down. Baroque harmonies and polyphonic textures shot through with flourishes of coloratura (the music is by Richard Thomas, the lyrics and libretto by Thomas and Stewart Lee) carry us into that musical stratosphere usually reserved for Mozart requiems and Bach chorales. The vocal style is majestic, hushed, ...