From Broadway to Barcelona: Chicago at Teatre Tívoli

Chicago, a great show

A thirteen-year run in Broadway, six Tony awards and an audience of 17 million. These spectacular figures bear witness to the success of Chicago, the Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb musical with music by John Kander, which has seduced half the world and which is now coming to Barcelona, backed by the international show’s very producers.

Teatre Tívoli‘s will become 1920′s Chicago to bring audiences the story of Roxie Hart, a woman who kills her lover and ends up in prison. There she meets Velma Kelly, another crime-passionnel killer, her rival in securing the services of the best criminal lawyer, Billy Flynn, and turn herself into a star.

The sensuality of the music and dancing, and the great songs that everyone already knows, set the pace of a show where characters and story never lose their power. And that is because the stage, which is practically bare, only makes rooms for the actors and orchestra, delighting us with their live music.

Chicago is playing at the Tívoli for eight weeks, to the sound of jazz!

“Barcelona is the best city in the world” by Woody Allen

Playing to a full house last Sunday March 28, film director Woody Allen and his regular band showed their jazz repertory, some of which is closely associated with his films. During the concert he declared his love for the Catalan capital, saying: “Barcelona is the best city in the world“.

Woody Allen & Orleans Jazz Band

This was the film director’s second performance at the iconic Modernista concert hall, Palau de la Música. He was appearing on the Millennium Festival programme, in which he held a distinguished place a few years ago as a clarinettist in the New Orleans Jazz Band.

With a calling card of modest remarks, like “I’m nothing more than an amateur clarinettist“, “if I weren’t famous, nobody would come to my concerts“, “people come more to see me than to hear me“, Allen made another appearance before his Barcelona public, fans both of his films and performances.

The Modernista Palau had a put up a notice two days before the concert informing the public that all tickets had sold out for concert featuring the film director, a jazz musician, as he himself admits, with a passion for New Orleans music.

Allen learnt to play the sax soprano when he was thirteen or fourteen, but he later chose the clarinet as he’d always loved New Orleans jazz, especially Sidney Bechet.

While acknowledging that he listens to other kinds of music in his free time, including opera, classical music and modern jazz, and that he also loves songs from Broadway musicals, he reaffirmed his preference for New Orleans music. Source: www.bcn.es

Web de Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band