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| The Week - Article |
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There have been a number of famous partnerships in musical history: Gilbert
and Sullivan, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loew. If all goes well
at the Apollo theatre in London's West End on June 19 there will be another
one to add to the list: Rahman and Webber. It's an odd pairing by anyone's
standards, and yet if the previews are to be believed, these two musicians,
one from the west, one from the east, are about to rewrite the musical
rulebook as well as the songbook with their new show, Bombay Dreams. Andrew
Lloyd Webber, 54, is no stranger to the West End musical. In fact, he
has almost single-handedly kept the medium alive over the past 30 years,
ever since he wrote the music for Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured
Dreamcoat in 1968 with lyrics by Tim Rice (another famous pairing until
they fell out in the 1970s). Hits such as Starlight Express, Phantom of
the Opera and Cats, the longest running show ever staged in London or
on Broadway (an unrivalled 7,485 performances), have made Lloyd Webber
worth £420 million, and cemented his reputation as the greatest living
composer of popular music in the west. Given
Webber's own extraordinary gift for writing melodies, his new choice of
musical partner is strange, to say the least. A.R. Rahman, 36, is not,
of course, a lyricist. He is the Mozart of Asia, arguably the greatest
living composer of popular music in the east. "It took a long time for
people back home to accept that what I was doing wasn't just about making
lots of money," admits Rahman, who adds that his domestic fan base was
confused by his decision to get involved. So how did the relationship
work out? Who wrote the music? It is no secret that Webber, three times
married, is not the easiest person to get along with, but in this case
it seems to have been a perfect match. Webber is producing Bombay Dreams,
at a personal cost of £4.5 million, and Rahman has written the score.
"Rahman
is young, cutting edge," Webber enthuses. "I admire his unique sense of
harmony, his staggering rhythms and his melodies that take an unexpected
twist that no western composer would dream of. Structure and tune are
all that matter. Rahman knows that." So
impressed is Webber with Rahman's musical talent that he hopes that the
writer of the scores for Dil Se, Lagaan and 50 other films will go on
to be the saviour of the entire West End musical. "Rahman may be the catalyst
we need," he adds. How,
then, did Webber come across Rahman's work? His enthusiasm is certainly
timely. British culture is currently obsessed with all things Indian,
so much so that the next few months have already been touted by the media
as Britain's 'Indian Summer'. The worlds of fashion, film and retail are
all turning to India for inspiration: last month Selfridges on Oxford
Street decked out its entire basement in the manner of a Bollywood film
set, the British Film Institute is currently touring 150 Bollywood movies
around the country as part of its Imagine Asia season, and the V&A
museum is set to stage a large exhibition of Bollywood posters in July.
But Webber's interest in Rahman and the Bollywood film industry dates
back much longer. "About
a decade ago on Saturday mornings, Channel 4 showed a selection of popular
Hindi movies in a series called Movie Mahal," Webber recently recalled
in the Daily Telegraph. "I was cooking lunch when a song lured me away
from the stoves. Three lines of gorgeous girls were dancing for a few
seated blokes with turbans while one girl moved demurely and sang in an
abnormally high chest voice. Very good this song was, too. Unfortunately,
I forgot to write down the name of the movie. To this day I haven't traced
it. "A
couple of years later, I was introduced at lunch to film director Shekhar
Kapur. I asked him about Bollywood and mentioned the unknown song. Shekhar
volunteered to find it. He sent me a couple of videos that he compiled
of dozens of Bollywood's greatest hits. I never found that song, but I
discovered something else. One in every five songs evinced a melody of
pure gorgeousness or a rhythm so complex or a level of musical invention
on a single 'drone' note that made me realise that I could be listening
to something that I had always hoped would happen: the revitalisation
of popular melody from somewhere far removed from western music and America." Webber
soon began to suspect a common denominator in the one in five songs that
were having such an impression on him. He quickly realised it was their
composer: A.R. Rahman. He rang Kapur (who is now credited, with Webber,
as having come up with the original idea for Bombay Dreams) and requested
a meeting. They met in Mumbai, where he asked Rahman if he would write
a musical for him. "He was intrigued, if more than a little bemused,"
says Webber. Webber was equally bemused by Rahman's enormous personal popularity. He was mobbed for autographs as the two of them later walked through London's streets. The pair, though, quickly got down to work and the results will be seen on June 19, when the show opens on the London stage. It's a team effort, of course, and Webber has typically brought together a talented team of known and unknown writers and performers. The popular comedienne Meera Syal has written the script, Dalip Tahil plays the corrupt father of Preeya, the obligatory love interest, and the choreography is by Anthony Van Laast and his assistant, Nocola Treherne. They travelled to Mumbai, where they were advised by Bollywood choreographer Farah Khan. Her assistants, Geeta Kapur and Feroz Khan, are currently in London fine-tuning the western dancers' mastery of Bollywood dance. "Blending eastern and western dance moves is more difficult than you would think," says Kapur. "In the west dancers are trained in straight lines-pointed feet and rigid arms. Indian dance is much more fluid, so I am telling them to forget all their training and just relax and loos-en their bodies-especially their pelvises." As for the anomaly of one composer putting on another's work, Webber says that this is nothing new. "It is not unprecedented," he says. "Rogers and Hammerstein staged Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun." He also says he is proud to be bringing a composer to the West End who has the following quote on his Web site: "If a music artiste wants to blossom into a full-fledged person, it's not enough if he only knows classical music, well versed only in ragas and techniques. He should be interested in life and philosophy. In his personal life there should be, at least in some corner of his heart, a tinge of lingering sorrow." If Bombay Dreams, complete with a huge fountain on stage (for the water dance sequences), turns out to be a damp squib, there might be a little too much sorrow, but that's a risk Webber and Rahman are prepared to take. |
A
different stage: Webber with Shekhar Kapur and Rahman 
Creators and the cast: Webber
and Rahman with