Watching a recent preview of Rocktopia, the “rule-busting multimedia extravaganza” (according to its official site) that just landed on Broadway, I couldn’t help but think of Dewey Finn, the central character in the vastly more entertaining musical School Of Rock. If you’ve seen the latter show, or the movie that inspired it, you know that Dewey, a wanna-be guitar god who reveres the classic-rock canon with religious fervor, would love everything about Rocktopia—the earnest spectacle, the overstated reverence, the guitarist whose pained expression and skin-tight pants evince his complete dedication to art.
But more about that second dude later. Give Rocktopia, which arrives following a national tour, this much credit: It knows its audience, and it serves them honestly and without cynicism. Co-creators Rob Evan and Randall Craig Fleischer, respectively featured onstage as vocalist and “maestro” (conductor), have not cooked up some cockeyed plot or artist hagiography as an excuse to string together a series of familiar tunes. This is not a jukebox musical but a concert, and as such it can cater unabashedly to baby-boomer nostalgia.
Alas, extolling the glories of that old-time rock & roll isn’t the sole mission of Rocktopia. Subtitled “A Classical Revolution,” the production features the New York Contemporary Symphony Orchestra and the New York Contemporary Choir alongside pop singers and musicians, and blends songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, Queen, Aerosmith and similarly iconic acts with works by the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. In many numbers, arranged by Fleischer, excerpts from the latter are used to introduce longer performances of the rock tunes, and strains of the classical material are filtered in with varying degrees of success. (“Kashmir” and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” prove a good match only in the level of histrionics accompanying both.)
At the performance I saw, audience members frequently applauded whenever the rock song entered the mix, as if they’d taken their medicine—Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, for instance, or Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue—and were ready to turn the dial up to 11. But they were appreciative of all the technical skill on display; it’s impossible to ignore, as the soloists practically hit you over the head with it. Subtlety and discretion are not among the higher virtues in album-oriented rock, or in aspirational hybrids of the kind that surface periodically on PBS—which broadcast a performance of Rocktopia from Budapest last year.
Violinist Máiréad Nesbitt is, as a founding member of Celtic Woman, is familiar with the latter milieu, and she undulates and tosses her long blonde hair around dutifully. Aforementioned guitar hero and music director Tony Bruno, who stands across the stage—occasionally moving to the center to jam with another artist, or let one of the leg-flashing female singers lean lasciviously against him—keeps his shirt buttons open and his pelvis thrust forward, tearing into one juicy solo after another. (He has a bunch, with the set list including “Stairway To Heaven,” “Baba O’Riley” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.”)
Bruno’s credits include TV’s America’s Got Talent, The X-Factor and The Voice, the last of which was also a showcase for two of Rocktopia’s featured vocalists, Tony Vincent and Kimberly “ROCK Ballerina” Nichole. The singers, who also include Chloe Lowery and operatic soprano Alyson Cambridge, all favor the more-is-more approach common to such contests, belting and bending and holding notes—in Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is,” Elton John’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” and Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” among other anthems—till you fear they’ll all drop to the floor in sheer exhaustion.
There are vehicles for Evan, a veteran of bombastic musicals such as Les Miserables and Jekyll & Hyde and member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and guest vocalist Pat Monahan, lead singer of the rock band Train, with the show through April 8. (Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander joins the production April 23-29.) There’s plenty of visual grandiosity, too, with blinding lights and video images designed to fit the material: youth protests for “Another Brick In The Wall,” psychedelic patterns for “Purple Haze,” various outdoor scenes for U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name.” And lots of flowers and water.
I’ll admit to being moved when Special Olympian Chelsea Werner appeared, smiling, as part of the montage accompanying Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9: Ode To Joy and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.'” I’ll bet Dewey would have liked it too.
Rocktopia opened March 27, 2018 at the Broadway Theatre and runs through April 29. Tickets and information: rocktopia.com/
