Learning Guide for "Cabaret" at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Click "Full" at the bottom for a more readable version)
Producing Artistic Director Eric Rosen and the Design Team discuss the upcoming production of Cabaret at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre:
2009 BBC documentary on The Real Cabaret (6 parts; 1 hour total running time):
Listen to Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf:
Listen to the Seikilos Epitaph:
Listen to Euripides Orestes (Stasimon Chorus):
WEEK II MUSICAL SELECTIONS:
Josquin's "Scaramella va alla guerra" takes as its subject a stock figure of Italian comedy, the buffoon-like soldier. Several other composers of his time and after wrote light comic pieces extolling the exploits (and blunders) of this "scarecrow"-like figure. In addition, following the common practice of sexual innuendo in secular songs of the time, it is not always clear whether Scaramella the soldier is wielding a knight's "lance," or if his martial misadventures involve sexual peccadillos as well. Josquin's soldier, according to the text, might be experiencing one adventure only wearing his shoes...Josquin's version does, however, include passages of war-like nonsense syllables, evoking the sounds of fifteenth century cannon: "La zombero, boro, borombetta, boro, borombo." Musically, he provides a setting typical of the genre in its simplicity: the voices tend to move only in quick and predictable homophonic progressions, leading to rather simple cadences. The emphasis is rather on the audience's perception of the humor in the text and in its characterization of the bumbling lancer.
"The Little Garden of Paradise" by the Upper Rhenish Master (1410)
