From operetta to Oklahoma!

Available for 28 days

Tenor Nicky Spence explores the deep and often-overlooked connections between classical music and the world of musical theatre. In episode 1, he tells the story of how musical theatre was born out of operetta in the early 20th century; from composers such as Offenbach and Arthur Sullivan to Noël Coward, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers. Nicky speaks to the musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh about the phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan, how Gershwin and Kurt Weill blurred genres on Broadway, and how Rodgers and Hammerstein created the template for the modern musical. Nicky and his husband, the pianist Dylan Perez, also perform musical excerpts from Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and Noël Coward's Bitter Sweet, drawing out hidden connections. Produced by Rachel Gill for BBC Audio.