Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people favorited this theater
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How unfortunate today that things must be extreme. Just saw some of the Big Spender number from the revival of Sweet Charity on TV last week. The jaded dance hall hostesses of New York 1966 have become soft core Russ Meyer vixens circa 1973. In todays entertainment world your either a dogma thunping fundamentalist or an arrested development teenage prostie like Britney.
The Hall is just another symptom of todays cultural rot.
Regarding sam_e’s comment about doing away with The Nativity scene altogether, I’m surprised that they haven’t done so yet. From a PC point of view, it might be considered too Christian (why not call it the “Radio City Holiday Show”?). I’m joking here…
During this whole “discussion” last week about the narration that I did not like, I thought EXACTLY as Vincent did of the beautiful Charlie Brown Christmas show and how nicely the integrated the story of the Nativity into the show without beating it over your head. It’s graceful and, most importantly, subtle.
No one wants or needs to have ANY religon rammed down anyone’s throats. What people DO like and appreciate is a story, even if it’s religous, told in an intelligent and thoughtful way. THAT is what made the old Nativity so good. It didn’t force it’s message on you. It made you “feel” by it’s subtle, beautiful and unforced presentation. Less is more…
It’s interesting that during all this talk about the Christmas show, no one has mentioned another seasonal and religious-oriented tradition: “Kol Nidre” that was presented every September (app.)during the high Jewish holy days. Like the “Nativity,” it preceded a regular show with the Rockettes, ballet, choral ensemble and symphony orchestra. The traditional “Kol Nidre” melody was played by a solo cellist at stage left and sung in cantorial style by a solist (seen) the choral ensemble (unseen). The backdrop was simply rolling clouds. There was no accompanying narrative, but it was reverential, brief, and tasteful. I can’t tell you when it began or how many years it remained a tradition.
Wouldn’t [that] be Loverly?
http://www.epinions.com/content_86937210500
$100! Sheesh!
For $100 I expect to see My Fair Lady.
With the original cast.
Vincent, perhaps they did me a favor. But at $100 a ticket, I want to see everything – good OR bad!
At the risk of offending just about everyone, it would seem to me that RCMH might do better staying away from the nativity sequence altogether and stick with entertainment. Leave the religious aspects to those institutions recreating nativity scenes already and in surroundings better suited to it.
Bob they did you a favor.
Yes there was a narration in the original Nativity. However it was more like the Linus narration in Charlie Brown Christmas which I happen to think is wonderful.
Banal pieties seem to have taken the place of eloquence and brevity.
When I went to the Christmas show a few years ago, there were quite a few people that left when the Nativity segment began. I had a family of 7 or 8 right in front of me (with small children) get up and leave. It took them several minutes to gather their things, and they weren’t trying to be too quiet about it either.
Needless to say, it was VERY distracting for those that wanted to stay!
Well, it was not in the Christmas shows that I saw in the 70’s.
I was moved by the narration at the end and felt it was in keeping with the nativity scene. But I seem to remember it even back in the 1970s when I saw my first movie at the Hall, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.” So my question is, when exactly was this text added to the Christms Show?
I think the producers of the current Christmas show must realize that the Nativity scene has the potential to turn off viewers. Notice that it’s now at the END of the show, not the beginning as it was before. I remember how the house lights would dim and that solemn, beautiful Nativity scene would begin.
Honestly, it was the highlight of the show. Yeah, the Rockettes were memorable but for me, after all these years (almost 30! Oye!) it’s the Nativity that stays with me.
Leonidoff’s Nativity and Glory of Easter were two of my favorite theatrical events.
The current show is a manifestation of current religious smugness and righteousness(and Christians are not the only perpetrators.)
If RH were not so quick to label us as Christian bashers(I was raised a good Catholic boy) he or she would understand that what we find objectional is the reduction of a great theatrical pageant narrating the story of Christmas using imagery from Rennaissance painters to a flattened out fundamentalist tract that does little to impart the true meaning of Christmas and only reinforces a tendancy to assume superiority.
Leonidoff avoided this while at the same time creating a thrilling sense of exhiliration. And he was Russian Orthodox!!!
What in the world has happened to us?
Christian bashing indeed.
We’re not bashing Christians at all. Read my posts above and I state that the original Christmans Nativity scene (back in the 70’s) was truly remarkable. What I object to (and I’m sorry if this sounds like Chrisitan bashing) was/is the rather over the top narrative that is scrolled at the end of the Christmas show.
The original Nativity was a model of craftmanship. It was a subtle gem. You didn’t have to be a Christian to be moved by it. As a kid, it brought tears to my eyes it was sooooooooooo goood. And I was a non religeous kid to boot.
I brought my daughter to see the show expecting her to experience the same thing. And what did I get? The equivilent of an amusement park show with an underwhelming Nativity scene AND an over the top narrative to wrap it up. She, even at 8 years old, commented on how out of place it was.
I not bashing Christians. I’m bashing the present Nativity and Christmas show.
I’m amazed by the relentless Christian-bashing by many on this page. Multitudes exit the Music Hall each December grateful for having the true message of Christmas presented. That includes many life-long NYC residents, of which I am one. My parents took me for the first time on my 4th birthday in December, 1969. I plan to continue to bring my family for many years to come.
Oh, GOD…I did NOT ask for a transcript! Why did I have to read that! Again! I was appalled that the Christmas show would do something like that. Why would they do that? The one I saw as a kid was so subtlety affecting that it was a marvel. I’ve never forgotten it.
The only thing I can think of is that it’s part of the roadshow version of this show. They play this Christmas show across the country and someone genius must’ve thought this would’ve been great in red states. By in NY? Oye.
There were plenty of movies that could’ve/should’ve opened at RCMH this year. “Lemony Snicket”, though mediocre, would’ve looked great up there and it’s essentially a family film. Christ, even “Meet the Fockers” would’ve been a huge sell out with Stiller’s following COUPLED with Streisand’s (the gay attendence would’ve kept it there for weeks).
I KNOW people my age are ready for a return to the BIG movie houses. Just look at how well the megaplexes are doing. Why? It’s not just the stadium seating but the LARGENESS of the auditoriums and the screens.
I say kill the Christmas show next year, it’s time to put it out of it’s misery. Let us have a big December release movie and a new holiday theme stage show, with the Rockettes, produced by someone who has the vision to start a new tradition. I want the steam curtain, the stage curtain going up and down through out the show, and the orchestra to come up from the pit roll to the rear of the great stage. What else do we want?
This is what is said currently in the holiday show?
Are they insane?
I had mercifully forgotten most of it.
Thank God Leonidoff is dead so as not to see this travesty. He would be aghast.
Maybe they can invite Mel Gibson to stage The Gory of Easter.
CConnolly and others have asked for the complete text of the Christmas message that was presented as part of the holiday show. I found it on the web.
One Solitary Life
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself…
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth â€" His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.
This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons†© 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!â€). If you are interested, you can read the original version . Graham Pockett
I remember “Hare Do”! I always preferred the Warner Bros. cartoons to any others, even as a kid. Now I have nieces and nephews who just don’t get it.
Ok, the presentation of the stage shows might’ve changed but we’re running the possibiltiy of re-opening the can of worms that was run into the ground earlier about the abysmal (sp?) Christmas Show.
Yep, I was born in ‘66 and that probably puts me in the LAST generation that remembers (fondly) single screen large theaters that were well maintained. My guess is that anyone born after 1970 cannot remember these theaters at all well.
I first the Christmas show in 1972 with “1776” (a thudding bore to a 6 year old). But the Christmas show? Fantastic. And I saw it every year after that until around 1978. Each year was great. And as I stated above, I took my 8 year old daughter to see it this year expecting her to be amazed by it like I was and I cannot tell you how incredibly, jaw-droppingly AWFUL the thing was.
I do not recall ever seeing another show at RCMH besides the Christmas show though. I might’ve but I don’t remember them.
BUT…the Music Hall itself is still grand and I will take my daughter on the tour sometime in the future. She LOVED the place more than the insipid show.
So CC I guess you were born in 66 making that the year I first visited the Hall(October.) I thought the stage show was spectacular and my mother, who hadn’t been there in years, remarked that it was pretty disappointing in comparison to the ones she had seen in the 40s and 50s.
Amazingly enough I saw a program on ebay from 33 or 34 where the stage show included some of the same features or acts that I saw in my very first show! Also the stage show I saw with the Timothy Dalton Wuthering Heights in 71(the Rockettes did a thing called Bayou Rythym and it was one of their great numbers) was the same as with the film Picnic in 56. I guess as the years went on the thing that basicially changed was scale of the presentation.
That joke, Ziggy, would go FLYING over the heads of everyone under the age of 50 or so. I’m 38 and I “get-it” because of my scant experiences and mostly due to my parent’s descriptions of places like The Roxy and RCMH.
And yes, I know the “Hare Do” cartoon Bob speaks of. It’s the one that culminates with Bugs Bunny leading Fudd through the darkened theater (he’s actually wearing dark sunglasses) and it seems to take forever (at one point you hear the sounds of them walking through water!) and Bugs constantly saying (with an abrasive accent) “right this way sir.”
Another funny scene that plays into the BIG theater theme is when Fudd is sitting in one of the upper balconies. When he looks down, he’s so far up that the stage is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below him.
And how the audience runs out of the theater to smoke up a storm in the lobby!
Very funny stuff and Thanks Bob Furmanek for brining that one up.
That’s a funny joke Ziggy, thanks for posting it.
If you want to see a really prime cartoon with lots of great theater gags, check out the 1949 Warner Bros. cartoon “Hare Do.” Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny around a movie palace!
All this talk about the overblown aspects of theatres and stage shows reminds me of a joke I read in a 1920’s joke book. (interesting that movie palaces were such a part of the public psyche that one could publish jokes involving them). Anyway..here goes.
A couple went to the movies on a date. During the presentation the young man got thirsty, so he left his seat and asked the usher if he could direct him to a drinking fountain “Certainly sir” was the reply, “just take the staircase to the left and walk through the art gallery, turn left and proceed down a row of potted palms. Then turn left… ” and so the usher continued. After getting thoroughly lost, the young man finally stumbled into what seemed to be a forest glade with a babbling brook. In desperation he threw himself down to drink from the stream, and somehow found his way back to his seat. Seeing that the picture had started he asked his date “How was the stage show?” She replied “You ought to know, you were in it.”