#romeo and rebecca

[glittering-under-the-glass]

European musicals explained really badly:

Woman keeps seeing her imaginary friend well into adulthood. This ruins lives.

Rich guys new wife is obessed with his previous deceased wife. This is the only thing she and the housekeeper agree on.

Child prodigy realizes that being an adult sucks.

Village boy battles vampires and bisexuality.

Two kids decide that dying is better than enduring their families’ bullshit.

Girl just wants to perform in the Opera, forced into a love triangle where both men suck.

Adolescent girl is under a lot of pressure in her new school, starts talking to a statue in the garden.

Crownprince only has dysfunctional relationships and he is very sad about it.

[joodeegemstone]

i wish there was a bigger audience for musicals that didn't originate in english. i wish these musicals were getting movie adaptations where the fandom could speculate and complain about casting and cut songs and changes.

[emptymasks]

After years of saying I will make cute lil chibi European musical stickers I have finally done it! Forgive me for drawing more Der Tod's than any other character, I'm biased towards him. Hopefully I covered most of everyone's favourite Euro musicals.

They're spread across 2 listings because Etsy only lets you have a max of 70 options in the drop down. Volume 1 has German and Dutch musicals and volume 2 has French and Russian musicals.

All the musicals here: 3 Musketiers / 3 Musketiere, The Count of Monte Cristo / Der Graf von Monte Cristo, Der Besuch der Alten Dame, Elisabeth das Musical, Demon Onegin, The Last Trial, Ludwig2, Master and Margarita, Mozart das Musical, Mozart l'Opéra Rock, Notre Dame de Paris, Rebecca das Musical, Roméo et Juliette, Rudolf Affaire Mayerling, Schikaneder, Tanz der Vampire, Vivaldi.

I can’t link to my Etsy without risking Tumblr hiding the post from tag search results, but the link is in my pinned post, my carrd, I’m emptymasks on Etsy. Reblogs help support artists more than likes ❤️

[ID: Individual pixel art chibi drawings of 70 characters from various European musicals (listed above) that are available as stickers. These drawings are also available as badges where they are placed inside circles to show what they will look like as physical button badges, some of them with plain colour backgrounds and some with 1-3 different pride flags as examples of how you can customise the backgrounds.]

[sovamurka]

A sentence that I cannot say among my musical circle because I'd be bullied immediately: European musicals are ten times better than Broadway ones 😔

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

I loved your analysis of the Romeo and Juliet reference in Taylors song it was such a perfect example of why people praise her songwriting so much without realising how hollow it is. I also especially loved how when someone commented that they didn’t have a large enough vocab to understand your post, you actually responded really nicely and offered to explain! It’s such a bare minimum thing but so rare to see on the Internet where people often just ignore such comments or become pretentious. Anyway, definitely earned a follow because your posts seem really cool and I hope you do more song analysis posts, whether they’re praising or critiquing music.

Hello! Apologies for taking so long to get back to you! I’ve been in middle of moving (and it’s taking up much of my time ahaha). I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed my Romeo and Juliet post. I love that play- mostly because of its sly, subversive nature and social reform thematic purpose. I remember reading it in High School and how that was one of the first times I was consciously aware of the power literature holds to shift culture and move public consciousness towards progressive ideologies. Remarkable. For that reason, Swift’s repeated misunderstanding, and blatant, purposeful ignorance surrounding the plays, has always frustrated me.  

I will be returning to the topic to write about the infamous “Love Story” (2009), and I’m also going to debunk a couple of her other literary references like The Scarlett Letter one. Also, I will be posting something about her bastardization of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” (1938) because she over-simplified the thematic point of the book and made it seem silly, and frivolous, instead of the hard-hitting social reform literature that it is. Much of my frustration with Swift stems from her use of literary genius, and the way she twists these stories into empty- ego-driven narratives that singularly focus on break-ups or centering her aspirations towards praising hetero-patriarchal standards in her music.  

I’m fucking over it- Y'all.  

She has this way of taking literary references, some of the most famous and important works in history, and remaking it into something dull, derivative and nonsensical. She incinerates the plotlines and erases the methodology of the literary work through demeaning the intrinsic social reform efforts of the works themselves. For instance, with my post on her work and the reference to “Romeo and Juliet” I mention how Swift purposely leaves out, or negates, Shakespeare intentional social reform phenomenological base to the line “O be some other name/ What’s in a name?” Shakespeare himself is clearly drawing attention to the ways in which people often judge not by the content of our characters but by shallow intonation of our names and station in society. He is using these lines, and the two characters, to show how hypocritical and judgmental it is to uphold petty difference over the ideal of believing in the prospects of human connection. Shakespeare was a radical in his day- he pulled no punches to criticizing the aristocracy or the values of post-feudal hierarchal institutions.  

Swift took such an intentional aspect of his work, his social reform efforts, and purposely divorced it from the line. Thus, remaking, rewording, it into her line, which was a silly, and self-centered, petulant line about how people really should have been nicer to her because she’s a good girl. It’s so fucking stupid- imagine trying to remake Shakespeare without understanding Shakespeare. I cannot abide- now that I’m grown, and no longer a child, who could mindlessly listen to her bastardization of important literary work- I simply must speak up. It’s important because, I think, that her purposeful misuse of the work- making it devoid of social reform- says a lot about her intentions as a person. She’s not the activist people think she is- she's just another pseudo-intellectual grifter.  

Anyway, I’m glad you found something worthwhile in that post- and I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my other posts since then. I admit that I sometimes venture into posting mere opinion- but for my more serious posts I will stick to interrogation of her work through literary invocation. It’s just what I know best.  

If anyone has any questions about my posts- or confusions about my vocabulary use- I am happy to chat and answer questions! I really meant it when I told that person that I would be happy to re-explain using some different words. Sometimes- I get carried away and slip into “academic jargon” but that’s not what I want my blog to devolve into. I want to share information with people who perhaps have not studied literature- or English. I wouldn’t judge anyone just for having a question or being confused about a certain word. I, myself, make a habit of studying other languages- besides English- and that does wonders for keeping me humble about my own knowledge of English. Haha. :) I do not express myself nearly so well in French or German- so it becomes much easier for me to empathize with those who have a hard time expressing themselves with language too. Language is hard- learning is even more difficult. But what a wonderful, rewarding venture it is to ask a question and learn something new!  

I encourage people’s curiosity- truly.  

And yes- I will certainly be posting about other artists as well. Haha, now that I feel comfortable doing so- I will have some fun with it :)  

Thank you for writing in- I am sending you well-wishes and good vibes.  

[chialattea]

Hey why does Romeo+Juliet slap so hard. Are there any other movies like it. (ft. doodles in between studying)

[cto10121]

Europeans translating American musicals: So we worked closely with the original composer to make sure our translation is as faithful as possible while remaining a singable rhyming translation. If a literal translation is not possible, we use a localized replacement that works in the target language. Please don’t hate us, we tried our best!!!

Literally anyone translating European musicals: *splotches lyrics on a plate like spaghetti, spits in it, and shoves it in your general direction* Here’s your stupid Eurotrash pop slop in English, happy now???? Also, we turned your corny-ass fauxpera into a comedy and replaced half the score with useless reprises. As is PROPER.

[shakespearenews]

Toheeb Jimoh as Romeo and Isis Hainsworth as Juliet in the Almeida Theater’s new production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Credit: Marc Brenner

...this production from Rebecca Frecknall — the buzzy British director whose shows tend to scoop up Olivier awards — treats the often overly familiar play as if it were entirely fresh, and the result is astonishing.

...Her “Romeo and Juliet,” performed without an intermission, begins with the cast clawing feverishly at a stage wall, onto which are projected crucial lines from the prologue. But as if in haste to get straight to the meat of the play, the wall soon collapses to reveal the citizenry of Verona mid-combat. Danger, you feel from the start, is the default mode of a contemporary-seeming milieu amid which Juliet is described by her father as “a stranger in the world.” That is perhaps because she hasn’t yet experienced life’s abrasions; such an awareness will come — and how — with time.

...It’s fascinating, too, to see the balcony scene reconfigured so that Romeo is perched atop a ladder addressing Juliet center-stage, flipping the play’s iconic imagery.

[bookstofilms]

“It doesn't even make sense, if you think about it. It's the world's biggest joke. Our entire lives are set up around not dying, knowing all the while that it's the one thing we can't avoid.” — Rebecca Serle, When You Were Mine

[theghostparty]

Quand Mercutio nous chantait "la vie est belle" Moi, j'y croyais...

This one goes out to the absolutely wild hairstyle choices they subjected Cyril Niccolai to during the 2010 revival.

[feeling-and-form]

the best act 2 finales from stage musicals, broadway and european, and crossover works. reprises, medleys, and instrumentals included. no disney.

[YouTube] [Spotify]

There’s No Business Like Show Business / They Say It’s Wonderful (Reprise) - Annie, Get Your Gun (Berlin)

Ol’ Man River (Reprise) - Show Boat (Kern/Hammerstein)

You’ll Never Walk Alone (Reprise) - Carousel (Rodgers/Hammerstein)

Rose’s Turn - Gypsy! (Styne/Sondheim)

Finale - West Side Story (Bernstein/Sondheim)

Der Schleier fällt - Elisabeth (Lévay/Kunze)

Ich hab geträumt von Manderley (Reprise) - Rebecca (Lévay/Kunze)

Down Once More / Track Down This Murderer - The Phantom of the Opera (Webber/Hart)

One (Reprise) - A Chorus Line (Hamlisch/Kleban)

Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag - Chicago (Kander/Ebb)

Climb Ev’ry Mountain (Reprise) - The Sound of Music (Rodgers/Hammerstein)

Oklahoma! - Oklahoma! (Rodgers/Hammerstein)

Finale - Wicked (Schwartz)

Lawd, I’m On My Way - Porgy and Bess (Gershwin)

Finale (Medley) - Hello, Dolly! (Herman)

Epilogue - Les Misérables (Schönberg/Boublil)

John Nineteen Forty-One - Jesus Christ Superstar (Webber)

Danse mon Esméralda - Notre Dame de Paris (Cocciante/Plamondon)

Anatevka - Fiddler on the Roof (Bock/Harnick)

Coupables - Roméo et Juliette (Presgurvic)

Le monde est stone - Starmania (Berger/Plamondon)

Der Tanz der Vampire - Tanz der Vampire (Steinman/Kunze)

[basilhallwardrealasfuck]

Life is great because you can listen to European musicals. But watch out!

[shayennelovesbooks]

The following text has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language by Jesinia Neilwart, Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at Basgiath War College. All events are true, and names have been preserved to honor the courage of those fallen. May their souls be commended to Malek.

THIS is making me so nervous. I wholly forgot about this until someone talked about it on tiktok and since then I have such a bad feeling.

Are they gonna die? What does it mean? Were we warned from the very beginning?

[emptymasks]

i've been wanting to get back properly into posting european musical content for ages, i've just been really busy and on-and-off sick for the last couple years. and i've become much more interested in archiving content rather than just finding it and having my own little hoard.

so anyway hi i'm wondering if there's an interest in me archiving clips for musicals. what i mean is not bootlegs or proshots, but interviews, tv promos, trailers, behind the scenes, basically any official videos for a musical that isn't an actual full recording of the musical. i'd put these up on archive.org and group them by musical.

i've got so many clips of musicals like tanz der vampire that i collect to make gifs and video edits from and on multiple occasions people have asked where i got the clip from, and sometimes the clip has been deleted from the web after i found it, sometimes its on a website that you have to make an account for and you're not comfortable doing that. so. yeah. let me know if you'd be interested and i can sort through all my clips and get them on the archive. and try and update them when i can.

so, i guess i can make this a poll rather than ask for people to reply to the post:

[giuliettacapuleti]

Mark Seibert (left) and Szilveszter P. Szabó (Szabó P. Szilveszter) playing the same character but with opposite energy.

top to bottom - Maxim from Rebecca, Colloredo from Mozart!, Tybalt from Romeó et Juliette, and Der Tod from Elisabeth.

[girlwhodoeskratom]

Rebecca Ream @ Romeo Gigli Fall/Winter, 1990 Ready-to-Wear