David Soul, David Bedella, Leon Craig, Carrie Ellis, Alison Jiear, Christopher Key, Benjamin Lake, Ryan Molloy, Claire Platt, Guy Porritt - Jerry Springer: the Opera
Band: David Soul, David Bedella, Leon Craig, Carrie Ellis, Alison Jiear, Christopher Key, Benjamin Lake, Ryan Molloy, Claire Platt, Guy Porritt Title: Jerry Springer: the Opera Rating: Release Date: 06 January, 2004 Media: Audio CD
Tracks: 1: Overtly-Ture Full Company 2: Audience Very Plainsong 3: Ladies & Gentlemen 4: Have Yourselves A Good Time 5: Bigger Than Oprah Winfrey 6: Foursome Guests 7: I've Been Seeing Someone Else 8: Chick With A Dick 9: Talk To The Hand 10: Adverts 1 11: Intro To Diaper Man 12: Diaper Man 13: Montel Cums Dirty 14: This Is My Jerry Springer Moment 15: Mama Gimmee Smack On The A**Hole 16: I Wanna Sing Something Beautiful 17: Adverts 2 18: First Time I Saw Jerry 19: Backstage Scene 20: Poledancer 21: I Just Wanna Dance 22: It Has No Name 23: Some Are Descended From Angels 24: Jerrycam 25: Klan Entrance/End Of Act One 26: Gloomy Nurses 27: Purgatory Dawning 28: Eat Excrete 29: Haunting 30: Him Am The Devil 31: Every Last Mother F**Ker Should Go Down 32: Grilled & Roasted 33: Transition Music 34: Once In Happy Realms Of Light 35: F**K You Talk 36: Satan & Jesus Spat 37: Adam & Eve & Mary 38: Where Were You? 39: Behold God 40: Marriage Of Heaven & Hell 41: This Is My Cheesey 42: Jerry It Is Finished 43: Jerry Eleison 44: Please Don't Die 45: Take Care 46: Martin's Richard-Esque Finale De Grand Fromage 47: Play Out
Customer Reviews Awful...truly witless, vulgar and awful. I can't believe the ratings on this score. . 4's and 5's? Really? This score is truly awful. Written in a one-joke operatic style that quickly becomes excrutiatingly boring. . . wit and style is replaced with crudeness and vulgarity (granted it's Jerry Springer-inspired) in the libretto.
The performances are fine, but one listena to these discs (which takes forever) and you note three things: the audience is truly unresponsive to the show (a live recording was a poor choice). . . the idea itself is intriguing and might have worked in more talented hands. . . and, there is absolutely no reason to ever listen to this score again.
I'll be truly surprised if it survives in New York, if indeed it ever makes the crossing. A major disappointment.
Lucky me. I saw it on TV I was stunned and enthralled, taped the repeat performance the next day, and have watched it many times since. Since I'm currently living in Australia, I have been blessed to see the BBC live broadcast of Jerry Springer, the Opera, on television. The staging is no less brilliant than the singing and acting. The casting is more than perfect, it's inspired. I can't see how any other production could ever match it. I raved to everyone I know and invited them over for a viewing. Most said they were sure they would hate it, but once they saw it, they entirely changed their minds. How could they not? This is one of the greatest theatrical experiences of all time - a work of original genius on the grand scale. Question: since this marvelous video production exists,why isn't available in the US? I want so much to give it as a gift to my hosts on my upcoming trip to America, but the US and OZ use different video systems. I looked into Amazon and found only the CD. Why doesn't Amazon acquire distribution rights for the video?
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The most offensive show ever written.
Jerry Springer: the Opera is not for the faint of heart. If you're the type whose conscience bruises easily, click the back button on your browser immediately and don't turn back, lest ye be turned into a pillar of salt. The playful, un-PC cheekiness only hinted at in shows like Avenue Q and The Producers is on full, raunchy display here.
The first act plays like a musicalized and uncensored version of a typical episode of the television show, where adulterers and fetishists are given an international forum to come unhinged, while the guests with the least fault to bear are stripped of their humanity and mocked.
But it's the second and third acts that are raising eyebrows the world over. In them, Jerry Springer goes to Hell after getting shot (in one of the most deliriously outrageous act one finales ever staged). There, he is forced to host a version of his show in the afterlife, featuring Satan, Adam, Eve, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and God Himself as his guests.
Anyone with half an imagination to devote to that scenario can only imagine that Biblical characters + Jerry Springer Show = a delicious recipe for controversy (or, as one church in England put it, "high blasphemy").
It should be said that this show has also been condemned as anti-American. This is preposterous; with the exception of some brief but highly satirical "commercial breaks" (that poke fun at Americans' love of Viagra, Jesus, guns and more), this musical is about as anti-American as the Jerry Springer show itself.
Musically, the score is incredibly rich. It is written in a traditionally presentational operatic style (the only character who doesn't sing all of his dialogue throughout the show is our host, Jerry Springer), but is thoroughly infused with rock, jazz and theatrical tonalities. Indeed, some of the ballads here could, if stripped of their ridiculous contexts, easily be inserted into any serious book musical. The singers are all incredible. They range from classically trained voices, to musical theatre veterans, to rock/pop-type singers -- a mixture as eclectic as the guest list of a typical Jerry Springer show.
But, above and beyond any hype, what is so incredibly groundbreaking about this opera is the way the music and especially the lyrics effortlessly transition from mildly offensive pastiche, into wildly offensive light opera, and then into incredibly moving high opera. The third act finale of this show packs a genuine emotional wallop the likes of which I haven't experienced in a theatre since the first time I saw Les Miserables.
It feels weird to type that about something called "Jerry Springer: the Opera" -- but there you have it.
It would be nice to see this opera get a highly polished studio recording someday, but in the meantime, you don't need to feel as if you're "settling" by purchasing this CD, because even though this recording is live, the quality is very high.
