The lyrics, loaded with metaphors and aphorisms, fire off honest observations about art versus commerce, pragmatism versus idealism, and the struggle to love amid jealousy and doubt. Fitting this feast of themes in a two-and-a-half-hour musical is an arduous ask for any composer-lyricist, especially one who insists on a nearly five-octave vocal sprawl.
A studio recording — with Ani DiFranco and Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon in the cast — was released in , earning a Grammy nomination for its packaging and a growing cult following. That concept album also became a magnet for key collaborators. Similarly with the incredibly high notes she gives Orpheus. Anyone composing on the piano would call that crazy, but luckily she wrote this on the guitar and put down what she had in her head.
So Mitchell continued to modify, clarifying the plot without compromising the poetry. She routinely revised in a solitary drum closet in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Inevitably, doubt came in. Behind that big smile on opening night is thousands of hours of frowning alone in the trenches of their mundane craft. As the production traveled after its off-Broadway run to Canada and England, some songs got only minor adjustments.
Other numbers get major overhauls. She drafted those tracks when she was younger, she says. Revisions have always been part of the stage musical. Unlike a movie or a TV show, which is traditionally unveiled as a final product on a specific date, theater pieces usually debut in stages — as readings, workshops and out-of-town tryouts before ultimately being brought to Broadway.
That development process, aimed at ensuring a polished production that can attract up to 2, ticket holders per show, is often coupled with an original cast recording to promote sales and to be logged for posterity.
Following albums including her self-released debut 's The Song They Sang A staged version of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in America during an economic depression, it was reworked for Broadway, where it opened in Inspired by bold female songwriters including DiFranco, Tori Amos, and Dar Williams, she began writing songs and seeking out opportunities to perform in high school.
Having traveled to the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe in childhood, she then studied languages and international politics at Vermont's Middlebury College. Her first album, The Song They Sang When Rome Fell, arrived in Also produced by Chorney, her debut on the label was 's The Brightness.
A collaboration with folk singer Rachel Ries, Country E. Mitchell's fourth full-length, Hadestown, was based on her American folk opera version of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which she had staged in New England. Chorney did the orchestrations. As Mitchell endeavored to develop her musical for a bigger stage, she continued to write and record, releasing the sociopolitically charged Young Man in America via Wilderland Records in A set of folk ballads originally by Francis James Child and recorded with Jefferson Hamer, Child Ballads followed on the same label in and hit number 20 on the folk chart.
A year later, Mitchell issued her seventh studio album, xoa, a mix of original songs and re-recorded tracks from her catalog. After premiering off-Broadway in a run that produced the cast recording Hadestown: The Myth.
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Album Reviews Song Reviews. Song Lyrics. Anais Mitchell - How Long? Review: RIFF-it. RIFF-it good. Listen while you read! Add Comment. Doubt Comes In 2. Epic Part I 3. Epic Part II 4. Epic, Part I 5. Epic, Part II 6. Flowers Eurydice's Song 7. Gone, I'm Gone 9. Hey, Little Songbird His Kiss, The Riot How Long?
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