[M George]

I was just watching some Beauty and the Beast clips on You tube of the first UK tour and it reminded me how good the orchestra was for that tour. In fact I remember seeing it in Manchester and being struck by the quality of the orchestra - probably the best pit orchestra I have ever heard. It got me thinking about the varying quality of pit orchestras. I have seen some shows that have had cracking orchestras but I've also been subjected to some pretty shoddy crap too both in London and out on tour - an tour of South Pacific a few years ago had a diabolical orchestra with some distinctly out of tune strings.

What are your thoughts? Best or worst pit orchestras you've heard?

[curzon]

I was just watching some Beauty and the Beast clips on You tube of the first UK tour and it reminded me how good the orchestra was for that tour. In fact I remember seeing it in Manchester and being struck by the quality of the orchestra - probably the best pit orchestra I have ever heard. It got me thinking about the varying quality of pit orchestras. I have seen some shows that have had cracking orchestras but I've also been subjected to some pretty shoddy crap too both in London and out on tour - an tour of South Pacific a few years ago had a diabolical orchestra with some distinctly out of tune strings.

What are your thoughts? Best or worst pit orchestras you've heard?

London pit bands are notorious for their variable quality because of the amount of dep-ing that goes on. The first show I ever worked on in the West End is a case in point. I won't name the show but if I say that most of the music was standard broadway fare but there was a huge cod Rimsky Korsakov section at the end of Act 1 most people will get the picture...
The band were fine on the ordinary stuff but the RK section was always a bit dicey. At that time there was a backstage bar for the musos and one night when the aforementioned section nearly went off the rails we assumed a higher lever of intake was the cause. However it turned out that the key to the bar had been mislaid and the band were all stone cold sober!

Sebastian

[mjr]

I recently saw the revival of guys and dolls, and was really impressed by the orchestra. This was in edinburgh. I was also really please that the size of the orchestra wasn;r decreased as sometimes tours do. However only a few weeks ago i saw beaty and the beast the new touring version, and for someone who was so used to hearing the original london cast recording to a full orchestra, this was not very pleasing. Alot of the playing was done on keyboards and all orchestral instruments were kept to the minimum. A player my self, i am reguarly playing with local musical and opera companys, and sometimes, the sounds comming from our ameture pits, can be better than those from a proffesional.

[bananafrit]

I recently saw the revival of guys and dolls, and was really impressed by the orchestra. This was in edinburgh. I was also really please that the size of the orchestra wasn;r decreased as sometimes tours do. However only a few weeks ago i saw beaty and the beast the new touring version, and for someone who was so used to hearing the original london cast recording to a full orchestra, this was not very pleasing. Alot of the playing was done on keyboards and all orchestral instruments were kept to the minimum. A player my self, i am reguarly playing with local musical and opera companys, and sometimes, the sounds comming from our ameture pits, can be better than those from a proffesional.

With all due respect (and I am by no means damning your comment, just throwing a fact into the conversation!) touring shows can be very expensive. The tour of beauty and the beast was reduced down in terms of costume, set AND musicians when it went out tour with UK Productions. I agree, it is a shame to hear it dumbed down so much after hearing the tremendous original orchestrations and having so much on synth is upsetting but its better than it all being on backing track right?

[mjr]

With all due respect (and I am by no means damning your comment, just throwing a fact into the conversation!) touring shows can be very expensive. The tour of beauty and the beast was reduced down in terms of costume, set AND musicians when it went out tour with UK Productions. I agree, it is a shame to hear it dumbed down so much after hearing the tremendous original orchestrations and having so much on synth is upsetting but its better than it all being on backing track right?

yes i agree 100%, i i do of course agree and understand about the costs of touring productions and am sorry if you got the wrong idea, and yoru right, it could be worse by being recorded.