“Wicked” - The Musical

“Wicked” - The Musical

Introduction

Since making its worldwide debut, Wicked has been breaking records at the box offices. The show has been around since 2003, and has been seen by more than two million individuals. The musical is based on Gregory Maguire's bestselling novel also titled “Wicked” puts an unexpected twist on the famous Wizard of Oz story (www.musicalschwartz.com).

Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin -- no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or to overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. But Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters the university in Shiz, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz' most promising young citizens (www.albertam.com).

Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere. Animals -- those creatures with voices, souls and minds -- are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals -- even it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance (www.wickedlyscarlett.com). Even wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.

Analysis

Recovering a Bewitching Tune

Although Stephen Schwartz rarely delves into his "trunk" of songs cut from shows, he did rescue a buried treasure for Wicked. Back in 1971, he served as the musical director on a short-lived show The Survival of St. Joan. The show's book writer asked him to write music for a lyric (www.ezinearticles.com). The song was about a couple stuck in a complicated, unsatisfying relationship. Schwartz set the lyric to a pop melody with broodingly dark chords at the beginning, appropriate to the romantic angst of the lyrics. But the song was abandoned. In May of that year, Godspell was mounted off-Broadway, and the songwriter quickly became absorbed in his musical-making career (www.musicalschwartz.com).

At home in Connecticut in 1998, after reading Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked. Schwartz sat at his piano penciling out song fragments as they came to mind for his new musical adaptation. He remembered the song he had written in 1971. The notion of using it for both a song and a musical theme began to emerge. 'And then trying to find the theme for Elphaba, that was sort of the 'Uh-oh, the witch is here'. I did it sort of Rachmaninoff style." At that point Schwartz launched into a bit of the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C Sharp Minor, suggesting that his guests might hear similarities to Wicked's opening chords (www.musicalschwartz.com). With a flourish, he played the ominous-sounding first chords used just before the opening number, "No One Mourns the Wicked," which serve as an overture. "I thought if I did it that way, it would be for the Wicked Witch, and like a giant ...