'West Side Story'
Many cities have become the perfect setting for movies, but what about musicals? Those shows, so many times made into movies, in which the protagonists sing and dance through the streets of the cities and people join them as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Many of them take place in Paris, London or New York and are already part of the history of their urban landscapes. Whether in a film version or on stage, here we bring you some examples of musicals set in big cities and highlight some of his most mythical songs. In case you want to rehearse in the shower before visiting them…
NEW YORK
The city that never sleeps, the city of endless skyscrapers, the cradle of Broadway and musicals par excellence. Perhaps the melody that best defines her is new york new york , composed expressly for the film of the same name directed by Martin Scorsese in 1977 and starring Liza Minelli and Robert de Niro. The actors play a singer and a saxophonist who meet on the same day World War II ends.
Who hasn't sung (and danced) to the tune of I want to live in America? well it belongs to West Side Story , a musical inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet but set in 1960s New York.
with music from Leonard Bernstein , won 10 of the 11 Oscars for which it was nominated. The Sharks (Puerto Ricans) and the Jets (Americans of European origin) face each other in a fight between rival gangs in the style of Montagues and Capuletos and leave behind great songs like María, Tonight or I feel pretty.
'West Side Story'
Shot in the same 1960s, but set a century earlier, Barbra Streisand brought to life a singer who rises from the slums to the heights of music stardom in Funny Girl..
Some of the essential songs are the ironic Second hand rose or His love makes me beautiful, as well as the romantic People and the empowering Don't rain on my parade, when Barbra gets on the Staten Island Ferry and enjoys the wonderful views of the Statue of Liberty.
The New York of the 30s would not be the same without the endearing little orphan Annie and her dog Sandy. The protagonist decides to escape from the evil Miss Hannigan to find her parents and thus leave behind the horrible orphanage where they made the children clean tirelessly while they sang. It's a hard knock life.
In the end, Annie finds a better Tomorrow, adopted by Mr. Warbucks. John Houston directed the movie about this musical in 1982.
In the 90s of the last century, Rent narrated to a rock rhythm the story of a group of young bohemians trying to make their way in Alphabet City, a rough neighborhood in the East Village.
Inspired by the opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini, This musical was another step in the normalization of the different LGBTQ+ identities and the visibility of AIDS at a time when almost nothing was known about the disease.
The 2005 film is almost identical to the musical and its songs are inspired by the passage of time –Seasons of love–, sexual freedom –The Tango Maureen–, love and heartbreak –Take me or leave me– or the joy of living –La vie Boheme–.
'Rent' at the Nederlander Theater on Broadway
Without leaving the United States, we have Chicago musical set in the 1920s and made into a film in 2002 with Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger as protagonists.
The story tells of how two cabaret performers kill their respective lovers and become celebrities during their murder trials, encouraged by the tabloid press. The introduction All that jazz presents the environment in which the protagonists move and their interests, the prison tango Cell Block Tango narrates the motives of each of the inmates to commit their crimes and how they have the "disinterested" help of 'Mama Morton' to get ahead –When you are good to Mama–.
In the end, the hypocrisy of the system allows the two to get out of the trials and instead of arguing and continuing to confront each other, They decide to appeal to the sorority of killer cabaret artists and collaborate with I can't do it alone.
The heart of the film industry could not be less when it comes to hosting great musicals like the legendary Singing in the Rain of 1952. Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds bring to life two actors living the change from silent films to sound films and star in musical numbers that have gone down in history such as Good morning or the unforgettable Singing in the rain.
In 2018, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga covered the 1937 musical A star is born again. and they played Jackson Maine, an alcoholic country singer who meets Ally Campana, a waitress and amateur singer, at a bar.
He invites her to sing Shallow together at a concert and the song goes viral. The two fall in love and as she becomes more and more famous, he drowns himself more and more in alcohol to the point that he ends up committing suicide so as not to be a burden to her.
At her funeral, Lady Gaga performs I'll never love again, the love song that Jackson composed shortly before he died in which he states that he will never be able to love anyone like her again.
'A star has been born'
LONDON
We changed continents and stayed in old Europe. London's West End would be the equivalent of New York's Broadway and One of the best known musicals set in the city of Big Ben is Mary Poppins.
This 1964 musical film follows the adventures of a peculiar nanny, practically perfect in everything, that she comes flying with her umbrella to the rescue of two brothers from a somewhat dysfunctional family.
She won five of the thirteen Oscars for which she was nominated, including best actress for Julie Andrews , and is considered one of Walt Disney's best films.
No one has had a childhood who does not know almost by heart great songs like A spoonful of sugar, Supercalifragilisticoespialidoso, Chim Chim Cher-ee, Sister Suffragette or Feed the birds with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.
Dick Van Dyke (Bert), Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins), Karen Dotrice (Jane Banks), and Matthew Garber (Michael Banks)
Curiously, that same year he shot my fair lady , played on film by Audrey Hepburn (voice is by Marni Nixon) and on Broadway and the West End for Julie Andrews . Coincidentally, both films faced each other at the 1964 Oscars and had to share the prizes: five for Mary Poppins and eight for my fair lady.
The action begins on a rainy afternoon in the early 20th century on the steps of Covent Garden, when young florist Eliza Doolitle (Audrey Hepburn) meets misogynist Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison), phonetics expert, who claims she can teach him to speak like a princess.
Some of the most famous songs are The rain in Spain, I could have danced all night, the romantic The street where you live or The Ascot Gavotte, an authentic aesthetic spectacle of costumes and choreography, in which each dress is a true delight for the senses.
Lastly, highlight Eliza's feminist and musical zasca to the teacher when she pulls irony to remind him that it is neither the beginning nor the end of her world, that spring will come without him, that there will be fruit on the trees without him and that she will be able to survive just fine without him.
'My Fair Lady' (1964)
A little earlier, in the 19th century, it is set the musical Oliver!, based on the play by Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, which took six of the eleven nominations for the 1968 Oscars.
Some of the songs that give a glimpse of London at the time are Consider yourself, Pick a pocket or two or Who will buy? in which it is seen how it dawns in a market, created as a decoration in the image and likeness of Bloomsbury Square.
PARIS
Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables is a musical with a score by Claude-Michel Schönberg which premiered in Paris in 1980 and five years later made the leap to London.
It is set in 19th century France and tells the story of a kind-hearted ex-con, Jean Valjean, who adopts a girl, Cosette, and they go to live in Paris pursued by Inspector Javert.
The play has wonderful songs like the nostalgic I dream a dream, who launched Susan Boyle into stardom on Britain's got talent in 2009, Do you hear the people sing with which you could start a revolution or the romantic and unrequited On my own.
Tom Hooper directed the film adaptation in 2012 which featured actors of the stature of Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter or Amanda Seyfried.
The Miserables
Directed by Vicente Minelli and performed by Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan, Gigi is set in late 19th century Paris and is based on the short novel by Colette.
She took all nine Oscars for which she was nominated in 1959 and tells the story of young Gigi, destined to become a courtesan like her grandmother.
The staging, costumes and choreography are spectacular and some of the most recognizable songs are Thank heaven for little girls, I don't understand the Parisians or the Waltz at Maxim's restaurant.
You can't talk about musicals without mentioning a classic like The Phantom of the Opera, based on the Victorian Gothic novel by Gaston Leroux, set in the Opera Garnier in Paris and with music by the great Andrew Lloyd Weber.
This 1986 musical is the second highest grossing in history, only behind The Lion King , and tells how the young soprano Christine becomes Prima Donna thanks to the help of the tormented masked ghost that hides behind the scenes of the theater.
Among the best known songs is Think of me, The music of the night, The phantom of the Opera or The point of no return.
Another classic is Moulin Rouge, the 2001 musical film that takes place in the Montmatre neighborhood during the Bèlle Époque. and tells the love story between Christian, a young composer who falls in love with the beautiful Satine, the star of the Moulin Rouge cabaret.
Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor were the protagonists of this story, inspired by La Traviata' by Verdi and The Lady of the Camellias by Alejandro Dumas Jr.
Although it is true that the film hardly has its own original music, it integrated into the plot, in a more or less well-bred way, numerous hits of pop or rock music such as Your song by Elton John, Like a virgin by Madonna, El tango de Roxanne by The Police, Lady Marmalade by Labelle or Diamonds are a girl's best friend from the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Set in 1934 Paris, Victor or Victoria is a hilarious musical from 1982 in which Julie Andrews She plays a starving soprano, who in order to get a job poses as a gay Polish viscount who in turn poses as a woman in her shows.
With her impressive voice record, she manages to succeed on stage and absurd situations and misunderstandings follow one another. her when she falls in love with a straight man who hears her sing and is not sure if she is a man or a woman.
Songs for posterity: Le jazz hot and The shady dame form Seville performed first by Julie Andrews in the film and later by Robert Preston in the final apotheosis.
Victor or Victoria?
We end our trip through Europe in Berlin, where the Cabaret, the 1972 musical starring Liza Minnelli, directed by Bob Fosse and inspired by Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin, which won eight Oscars.
In the interwar period, Sally Bowles is the star of the Cabaret Kit Kat Klub. In the boarding house where she lives she meets the British writer Brian Roberts and they become friends and then lovers in the face of the unstoppable rise of Nazi ideology during the last years of the Weimar Republic.
Virtually all the songs from this musical have passed into posterity, but Willkommen, Mein Herr, Maybe this time or Money, money stand out.
'Cabaret' at the Rialto Theater in Madrid (2015)