Matilda the Musical

Matilda the Musical is a stage musical based on the children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was written by Dennis Kelly, with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin. The musical's narrative centres on Matilda, a precocious 5-year-old girl with the gift of telekinesis who loves reading, overcomes obstacles caused by her family and school, and helps her teacher to reclaim her life. After a twelve-week trial run staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon from November 2010 to January 2011, it received its West End premiere on 24 November 2011 at the Cambridge Theatre and its Broadway premiere on 11 April 2013 at the Shubert Theatre.

Matilda has received widespread critical acclaim and box-office popularity, winning seven 2012 Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical—the most such awards ever won by a single show at the time. As of the 2013 Olivier Awards, the show now jointly holds the record with the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, although it still holds the record for most Olivier awards won by a musical. At the 2013 Tony Awards, the show won five awards, including the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.

The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".

The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it.

Musical films in the Western world

The classical sound era

The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the golden age of the musical film, when the genre's popularity was at its highest in the Western world.

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and those of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. The Princess Theatre musicals and other smart shows like Of Thee I Sing (1931) were artistic steps forward beyond revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous and iconic musicals through the decades that followed include West Side Story (1957), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Rent (1996), The Producers (2001) and Wicked (2003).

1776 (musical)

1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It dramatizes the efforts of John Adams to persuade his colleagues to vote for American independence and to sign the document.

It premiered on Broadway in 1969, earning warm reviews, and ran for 1,217 performances. The production was nominated for five Tony Awards and won three, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. In 1972 it was made into a film adaptation. It was revived on Broadway in 1997.

History

In 1926, Rodgers and Hart had written a musical about the American Revolution, called Dearest Enemy. Additionally, in 1950, a musical about the Revolution had been presented on Broadway, titled Arms and the Girl, with music by Morton Gould, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and a book by Herbert Fields, Dorothy Fields, and Rouben Mamoulian, the show's director.

Sherman Edwards, a writer of pop songs with several top ten hits in the late fifties and early sixties, spent several years developing lyrics and libretto for a musical based on the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Edwards recounted that, "I wanted to show [the founding fathers] at their outermost limits. These men were the cream of their colonies... They disagreed and fought with each other. But they understood commitment, and though they fought, they fought affirmatively." Producer Stuart Ostrow recommended that librettist Peter Stone collaborate with Edwards on the book of the musical. Stone recalled,

Matilda (name)

Matilda (sometimes spelled Mathilda) is a female name, of Gothic derivation, derived from words corresponding to Old High German "mahta" (meaning "might, strength") and "hildr" (meaning "battle").

The name is currently popular in Scandinavian countries. Mathilde appeared among the top 10 most popular names for girls born in Denmark in 2008 and the name was also well-used in Norway, Sweden and Finland. It is also currently rising in popularity in other European countries, including in France, the United Kingdom and in other English-speaking countries.

The name was most popular in the United States between 1880 and 1910, when it was among the top 200 names given to girls. It left the top 1,000 names in the United States by 1964, but reappeared for the first time in 44 years in the top 1,000 names as the 869th most popular name for baby girls born in 2008 in the United States.

Matilda (alt-J song)

"Matilda" is a song by British rock band alt-J from their debut studio album An Awesome Wave, released on January 10, 2012 as a digital download. It was released as a split single with "Fitzpleasure" in February 24 as a digital download and on 10" triangle shaped vinyl. It was written by Joe Newman, Gus Unger-Hamilton, Gwilym Sainsbury and Thom Green and produced by Charlie Andrew. The song is a tribute to Natalie Portman's character "Mathilda" from the 1994 film Léon: The Professional. The band would later release the song "Leon", a tribute to the main character of the film.

Track listing

Charts

Release history

References

Mathilda (novella)

Mathilda, or Matilda, is the second long work of fiction of Mary Shelley, written between August 1819 and February 1820. It deals with common Romantic themes of incest and suicide.

Background

The act of writing this novella distracted Mary Shelley from her grief after the deaths of her one-year-old daughter Clara at Venice in September 1818 and her three-year-old son William in June 1819 in Rome. These losses plunged Mary Shelley into a depression that distanced her emotionally and sexually from Percy Shelley and left her, as he put it, "on the hearth of pale despair".

Plot

Narrating from her deathbed, Matilda tells the story of her unnamed father's confession of incestuous love for her, followed by his suicide by drowning; her relationship with a gifted young poet called Woodville fails to reverse Matilda's emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death.

Criticism