Oliver! (Musical)

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Musical dates
Original title: Oliver!
Original language: English
Music: Lionel Beard
Book: Lionel Beard
Lyrics: Lionel Beard
Literary source: Charles Dickens : Oliver Twist
Premiere: June 30, 1960
Place of premiere: New Theater, London, England
Place and time of the action: London and Northern England around 1850
Roles / people
  • Oliver Twist
  • The Artful Dodger
  • Fagin
  • Nancy
  • Bill Sikes
  • Mr. Bumble
  • Mrs. Corney
  • Mr. Brownlow
  • Bet

& Ensemble

Oliver! is a musical by the British composer Lionel Bart , based loosely on the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens . Bart wrote both the music and the lyrics and the book .

The premiere took place on June 30, 1960 at the New Theater (now the Noël Coward Theater). The play was a long-standing success in London's West End with 2,618 performances . The Broadway premiere took place on January 6, 1963 at the Imperial Theater, where the play had 774 performances in almost two years. The German-language premiere took place on September 18, 1985 in the Salzburg State Theater. The musical has seen numerous successful revivals, especially in London's West End.

action

The action begins in an English orphanage around 1850. Oliver Twist lives here with other children under dire conditions. The children have to work hard and live in rags and poorly fed. When Oliver asks for a refill over dinner, it triggers the asylum's directors, widow Corney and Mr. Bumble , to get rid of Oliver. Oliver is sold to an undertaker. Even there, Oliver's life doesn't get any better. After an argument with the apprentice and lover of the undertaker's daughter, who insults his deceased mother, Oliver escapes. He goes to London hoping to find a better life there. As soon as he arrives in London, he meets Artful Dodger , a street boy who promises to put Oliver up with his friend Mr. Fagin . Fagin turns out to be the master of a gang of juvenile pickpockets whom he offers refuge and who in return have to steal for him. Oliver also meets Nancy , a former student of Fagin who is very popular with the gang's children, but who is in a relationship with the brutal and unscrupulous criminal Bill Sikes , for whom Fagin works as a fence.

Oliver is caught on his first thief tour for Fagin. Oliver watches Artful Dodger steal a man's wallet and runs away in a panic when he is suspected on behalf of Dodger. Oliver is put on trial, but it is found that he wasn't the one who stole Mr. Brownlow's wallet . The man has a guilty conscience towards Oliver because of his false accusation and therefore takes him home with him. For the first time in his life, Oliver experiences affection and orderly relationships there. Since Mr. Brownlow sees a great resemblance between Oliver and his missing niece, he writes to the orphanage to find out more about Oliver's origins.

Meanwhile, Fagin fears that Oliver might betray him and his gang. Bill Sikes steps in and forces Nancy to lure Oliver into a trap. When Oliver runs errands for Mr. Brownlow, the trap snaps shut. Oliver is kidnapped and first brought back to Fagin; However, Sikes decides to abuse Oliver for his burglary tours. Nancy tries to protect Oliver, but realizes she can't, so she turns to Mr. Brownlow to arrange a time and place where she would hand Oliver over to him without, however, revealing her boyfriend.

Meanwhile, the widow Corney and Mr. Bumble arrive at Mr. Brownlow's and give him a medallion from Oliver's mother that has been withheld for years in the hope of receiving a great reward. Mr. Brownlow recognizes the jewel immediately, since he had given it to his niece for her eighteenth birthday. He learns that his niece ran away not because her fiancé left her, but because she was pregnant by him. She had given birth to the child in the workhouse and died in childbirth. Mr. Bumble then named the baby Oliver Twist. When Mr. Brownlow realizes that the two directors of the institution do not have Oliver's welfare in mind, but only care about the money, he throws them out.

Mr. Brownlow is now extremely interested in finding his great-nephew Oliver again. But at the agreed place he only finds the bloodied, dying Nancy. Bill Sikes had watched Nancy and Oliver escape and had killed Nancy believing that she would betray him. He escapes with Oliver as a hostage. When Nancy's sister Bet arrives at the scene, she and several people want to pursue the killer. When they meet Bill Sikes on a bridge, he threatens to kill Oliver too, but does not notice that two police officers are sneaking up on him. Sikes realizes and knows that he can no longer escape the angry mob and hangs himself. Meanwhile, Oliver is rescued and can finally go home with Mr. Brownlow. Dodger steals a man's wallet while the onlookers stare at the body of Sikes. Fagin can get away with it too. When the two of them meet, they decide to continue living a crook.

Music track

1st act

  •  Food, Glorious Food (Bread, Glorious Bread) - The Boys
  •  Oliver! (Oliver!) - Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Corney, Oliver Twist and the Boys
  •  I Shall Scream - Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble
  •  Boy For Sale - Mr. Bumble
  •  That's Your Funeral - Mr. Sowerberry, Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Sowerberry
  •  Where is love? (Who Loves Me?) - Oliver Twist
  •  Consider Yourself (Come on, feel completely at home) - The Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist and Crowd
  •  You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two (Keep your crooked fingers nice and long) - Fagin, Oliver Twist and Boys
  •  It's A Fine Life - Nancy and Bet
  •  I'd Do Anything - The Artful Dodger, Nancy, Oliver Twist, Bet and Fagin
  •  Be Back Soon - Fagin, The Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist and Boys

2nd act

  •  Oom-Pah-Pah (Um-Pa-Pa) - Nancy and Company
  •  My Name (Bill Sikes) - Bill Sikes
  •  As Long As He Needs Me - Nancy
  •  Where is love? (Reprise) (who loves me? [Reprise]) - Mrs. Bedwin
  •  Who Will Buy? (Who wants to buy?) - Oliver Twist and Chorus
  •  It's A Fine Life (Reprise) - Bill Sikes, Nancy, Fagin and Boys
  •  Reviewing The Situation - Fagin
  •  Oliver! (Reprise) (Oliver! [Reprise]) - Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney
  •  As Long As He Needs Me (Reprise) - Nancy
  •  Reviewing The Situation (Reprise) - Fagin

   final

  •  Food, Glorious Food (Reprise) - The Boys
  •  Consider Yourself (Reprise) - The Boys
  •  I'd Do Anything (Reprise) - Entire Company

Performances

Oliver! at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane , London.
  • June 30, 1960 - 1966: New Theater (present name: Noël Coward Theater), London, England (2,618 performances) .
  • Jan 06, 1963 - November 14, 1964: Imperial Theater , Broadway, New York, USA (774 performances) .
  • 1977: London, England.
  • 1983: London, England.
  • April 29, 1984 - May 13, 1984: Mark Hellinger Theater, New York, USA.
  • December 8, 1994 - February 21, 1998: London Palladium , London, England (1,366 performances) .
  • Jan 14, 2009 - Jan 8, 2011: Theater Royal, Drury Lane , London, England (866 performances) .
  • 2011 - 2013: Tour production United Kingdom and Ireland (479 performances) .

There have also been numerous other productions around the world.

There have been some dramaturgical changes over time; Especially since the London resumption in 1994 there have been some changes to the orchestration and staging, which have replaced the originally rather small, intimate character with an expensive large-scale production.

Recordings

The music to Oliver! was published in several recordings on phonograms:

  • Oliver! (1960 original London cast starring Ron Moody, Georgia Brown, Paul Whitsun-Jones) - studio shot
  • Oliver! (1963 Original Broadway Cast) - studio shot
  • Oliver! The 1994 London Palladium Cast Recording - studio recording
  • Oliver! Rowan Atkinson, Jodie Prenger and the 2009 London Cast - recorded live

There are also numerous other cover versions of varying quality.

Movie

The musical was made into a film by Carol Reed in 1968 . The main roles are Mark Lester as Oliver, Ron Moody as Fagin, Shani Wallis as Nancy and Oliver Reed as Bill. The film was able to build on the success of the musical and received five Oscars in 1969 .

Others

Lionel Bart , who wrote both the music and the lyrics for this musical, was probably a role model for Andrew Lloyd Webber . Webber's first work, The Likes of Us , is similar to Oliver! in structure, style and music very much. It is also known that attending a performance by Oliver! inspired the French librettist Alain Boublil to write Les Misérables . In the Broadway version at the Imperial Theater, New York, David 'Davy' Jones played the role of Artful Dodger. That Davy Jones became world famous a few years later as a member of the beat band The Monkees .

swell

Thomas Siedhoff: Handbook of the musical . Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-7957-0154-3

Web links