Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH: If anyone seriously perused our site (and NOT looking for PR0N) we might avoid topics like this as they're a big fat zero to all but a tiny self-absorbed clique, but since virtually no one reads me I can write as I like: The Gods of Branson East celebrated their soon to be 80-year-old wunderkind HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM with a re-opening of what their followers call THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER, with Catherine Zeta-Jones!!!!!!!!!!, Angela Lansbury and a combo with strings. (The former might explain the latter.) This and the cheap set (ditto) caused a faint rumblerumblerumble mutinymutinymutiny on the Branson East chat boards, as well they might with the price of a pass nowadays, and last night the high-end theme park opened to decidedly mixed reviews. What astonished us, however, was the hint of career mortality from Five-Star Ben, from whom never is heard a discouraging word on HERR:

[W]ith a scaled-down orchestra at lugubriously slowed-down tempos, Mr. Sondheim’s score more than ever suggests — and not always desirably — echoes from a distant era. (The show is punctuated by the choral commentary of four lieder singers, who are always asking, “Remember, darling?”)

For some reason we remember, darling what happened to the film version of THE GREATEST OPERA EVER, when people ran screaming from the popcorn restaurants on opening day, ostensibly because SUMNER cleverly sold them slasher porn. We know the stupidity of the movee S&M phreaks, for whose self-abuse Hollywood assiduously devotes itself, but we wonder: perhaps people go to movees who aren't that stupid. Could some of them have have known of the masterpiece beforehand? And could some of them have run screaming from the popcorn restaurants when they realized they'd have to face two solid hours with HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM?

We repeat what we've said before: HERR DOKTOR is the age's version of Victor Herbert, a highly regarded stage and concert composer now slumbering in library dust, who unlike HERR could write melodies people could hum -- and we dare say for all his generic songwriting one or two of his works could be revived, to show the age wrong on TWO fronts.

We make a scene now because this theme-park opening exemplifies what little crumbs are left of the excellence that was once America's culture. More of us are living daily without its modern pleasures. How long can our arts go on rejuvenating themselves in a pigpen, wallowing in yesterday's mud?

And yes, this WILL be a hit, because your expense-account crowd has voided its brains just like the movee S&M phreaks.