On tripping to Timbuktu

When, doting moms and dads, you fail miserably to wean your youngster from the pop and rock of his gang mates with symphonies and operas; when Mozart makes him yawn, stare out of the window, and sigh over the sight of your labandera in her chemise dripping wet with soapy water from her wash; and when the trills of Callas and Caballe can’t keep his eyes open and he finally dozes off to dreamland, don’t despair.

Patience is not one of the virtues of today’s young generation. Your youngster’s tummy is attuned to instant meals at McDo or Jollibee. His mind cannot follow Tolstoy’s War and Peace but only the abridged Reader’s Digest edition. And his heart beats to a different drum — a very loud one that’s eardrum- splitting loud — to keep him wide awake.

Your lad won’t have the patience to listen to an entire Verdi opera but when you find a one-disc CD of Aida at Astro Vision or Music One, hold on to your purse. It is not the masterpiece that Verdi composed to inaugurate the opening of the Suez Canal. This recording is of the Broadway musical by Elton John and Tim Rice.

This Aida has nothing of Verdi, only a bowdlerized version of the plot. Radames and Aida are entombed alive but this is not their end. They are reincarnated in the present and meet each other at the Egyptian section of a museum. You see, Broadway has to be entertainment first and foremost before being art.

If you want your musical theater to sound more classical for your kid, then get two CDs produced by Sony Broadway.

The first is Kismet, which combines the talents of Samuel Ramey, Julia Migenes, Ruth Ann Swenson and Jerry Hadley of the Metropolitan Opera House and of Mandy Patinkin and Dom DeLuise of stage and screen. The melodies are those from the opera Prince Igor and the symphonies of Alexander Borodin. The plot is straight out of the pages of The Arabian Nights and might well have been told by Scheherezade — the age-old tale of the prince and the beggar-maid. Who cannot be enchanted by Stranger in Paradise and And This is My Beloved? This CD is one treasure you’d ask from the jinni of Aladdin’s lamp if Tower Records has sold its last copy.

(Incidentally, Broadway presented a black version of Kismet set — not in Baghdad — but in Timbuktu. Instead of veils and turbans, the cast, led by Melba Moore and Eartha Kitt, strutted about in peacock feathers and the multi-hued plumes of birds-of-paradise. Repertory Philippines should be challenged to stage this show of shows).

The second Sony CD is Man of La Mancha based on one of the world’s greatest masterpieces of literature, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Supertenor Placido Domingo is the half-mad idealist with "the impossible dream" who sets forth on his nag, Rocinante, and his esquire Sancho Panza, played by Patinkin, as a knight-errant in search of adventure. Soprano Migenes plays the kitchen wench at the inn, Aldonza, whom the Don takes to be his ideal of feminine purity, Dulcinea del Taboso. Tenor Hadley is the Padre and bass Ramey is the Innkeeper who is mistaken by Don Quixote to be the Lord of the Castle and whom he gets to dub him knight — the Knight of the Woeful Countenance. The music is tuneful and spiced with Hispanic rhythms and traditional melodic patterns that recall the zarzuela.

Kismet and Man of La Mancha are two CDs that every self-respecting collector cannot do without. They should get your youngster’s mind off your washerwoman and get him on his way to enjoying musicals.

But what if he hasn’t got much of an imagination and he requires visuals? You will meet his need with VCDs.

If your boy is that interested in chivalry, get him Camelot, the musical about that immortal love triangle — King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot (Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, respectively). I cannot guarantee he’ll like the songs except If Ever I Should Leave You, but the movie is still a grand spectacle.

Just as much of a visual delight but with a much more appealing musical score is Fiddler on the Roof. Nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, the film tells the story of Tevye, a Jewish milkman in the village of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia, whose ironic sense of humor, adherence to tradition and religious piety are tested to their farthest limits. The performance of Topol as Sholom Aleichem’s best-loved anti-hero is awesome. And the songs — If I Were a Rich Man, Matchmaker, To Life, Far from the Home I Love and Sunrise, Sunset are unforgettable.

Racial prejudice is also the theme of West Side Story which lifts the story of Tony and Maria (Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood) to the level of Shakespearean tragedy. Belonging to rival street gangs, the American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, the lovers become victims of the senseless violence that erupts between the two camps. Winner of multiple Oscars, including Best Picture, this cinematic masterpiece combines the music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (Maria, Tonight, Somewhere) and the choreography of Jerome Robbins.

If you feel queasy about giving your youngster a tragic sense of life, then try musicals with happy endings. Plays about orphans may make him shed a tear or two but does that not make the happy ending more joyful? Annie and Oliver might just fit the bill.

The first, based on a comic strip, has only one hit song, Tomorrow, and has nothing else going for it except the cuteness of the titular character.

The second has much more to offer than the cuteness of Mark Lester, the little hungry angel at the orphanage who dares to ask at mealtime, "Please sir, may I have some more?" A gallery of shady characters in London’s slums keep the action going: Fagin (Ron Moody) who runs a school for pickpockets, his star pupil, Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and the sinister Bill Sykes (Oliver Reed). The songs of Lionel Bart fall easy on the ear if they are not entirely memorable. Based on Charles Dickens’ novel, the film garnered many Oscars.

Another multi-award winning musical from the classics is My Fair Lady based on G.B. Shaw’s comedy, Pygmalion. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) makes a bet that he can untwist in six months the tongue of street flower vendor Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) to rid her of her Cockney and teach her to speak with elegance the Queen’s English such that she can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. The songs of Lerner and Loewe — The Rain in Spain, I Could Have Danced All Night, On the Street Where You Live — you and your boy will keep humming long after you watch this enchanting musical on your video screen — and on that you can bet "your bloomin’ ass!"

Does your family love pets? Then, by all means, get Cats. This feline fantasy has at least one hit song that’s bound to haunt your memory, Memory. This musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber is based on the book by T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

And finally, there are the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein whose names have become synonymous with Broadway. Take your pick — South Pacific, Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and many more. They have all become part of the memory — the psyche — of our generation. Our young ones today might well be weaned from the noise of Eminem and Red Hot Chili Peppers and given a heart that beats to the drum of the finest music of our time which is timeless.

When Princess Lalume intones her first number in Kismet, she names the wicked cities of antiquity — Nineveh, Tyre, Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah — and her opening line is about her own city, "Baghdad! You must investigate Baghdad!" This Babylonian vamp might well be President Bush’s alter-ego damning Iraq’s capital for its sins against humanity.

The musicals recommended here should make your lad climb every musical mountain with Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children soaring to Alpine heights to the sound of music (unless he’s totally tone-deaf!) such that he won’t even hear the frantic screams for help of your labandera drowning in the washtub in her soap suds.

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For comments, write to jessqcruz@ hotmail.com.