I'm up, I'm up. Got up at eight and had nineteen e-mails waiting to be answered.
If the young John Reardon walked into an audition today and sang the way he sang, he would not get a job. It's not just Aida - I "get" rock musicals, and no, the singing required there is completely different to "regular" musicals. However, Liz Callaway does not have a voice like gals of old - she has a completely different tone and style that is very much of today (in fact, she probably helped lead the way). In other words, Liz Callaway/Barbara Cook - very different tones and styles. Alice Ripley/Joan Weldon - very different tones and styles. I know it began changing in the mid-60s, but I'm trying to determine exactly when. Karen Morrow, who was coming up then, was in the Susan Johnson mold. Jill O'Hara was definitely a different sound (and not a good one, at least not in Promises). By A Chorus Line, we had the newer sound, but still had the Richard Kiley/Bob Goulet/John Reardon sound. By 1985 the latter had all but disappeared. And then, we began to have the loud belters (not like Ethel Merman - something completely different in tone and style), the Alice Ripley/Emily Skinner/Idina Menzel types, but, if you listen to my albums you will hear a very specific kind of female voice and it is not like female voices of old in any way, save for people like Judy Kaye, who still does the old thing, and Kristin Chenoweth, who CAN do the old thing if she feels like it. The one gal who can also do it, and does do it, is Audra MacDonald.