CAN’T HELP SINGIN’: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL ON STAGE AND SCREEN

In this entertaining and provocative narrative, noted film historian Gerald Mast argues that the history of the American Musical is also the hisolry of of American Culture as a whole. What the 18th and 19th century called Opera, America called the musical, and its star composers and performers enjoyed the same cultural power in their time as did Mozart, Puccini and Verdi. Mast shows the musical roots of the stage and screen musical in the immigrant roots of the American melting pot -- the British music hall and satiric opera, the sentimental ballads of the Irish, the minor harmonies of Jewish and gypsy violins, et alia.