Live symphony orchestras are nothing if not versatile. They perform symphonies by themselves, of course, in musical styles spanning hundreds of years. They perform as the accompaniment for pops acts with tribute bands and Broadway stars, celebrating popular singers and composers.
More recently, they’ve begun performing film soundtracks live with the film projected in the concert halls, a particularly lucrative performance option that has become extremely popular within the last decade.
Now, the Pittsburgh Symphony is moving further into the musical theatre world with a concert performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” Friday through Sunday, complete with singers, chorus, dancers and more in Heinz Hall. (Tickets begin at $25; details at pittsburghsymphony.org.)
At a typical Broadway show, there is a small orchestra of a few dozen players down in the “pit” beneath the stage accompanying the singers as they act out the musical. The symphony’s “concert” version will emphasize the show’s score with a larger orchestra performing onstage. Legendary film composer John Williams himself wrote the expanded orchestration for a filmed adaptation years ago. There will be minimal staging, but the musical’s dialogue has been trimmed to reduce the show’s length from three hours to an hour and forty-five minutes.
Classical concert music doesn’t actually make money for a variety of reasons. (It has always been subsidized to one degree or another, but the subsidization is especially high at the moment.) But offerings like film scores are resonating with modern listeners and bringing scores of new people into the orchestra hall.
Broadway shows, like blockbuster films, are designed to make a profit. Perhaps this will be another avenue for orchestras.
The question is, will it cannibalize from other Broadway performances in the city?
In Pittsburgh, the other main Broadway organizations are the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which programs a variety of Broadway touring productions throughout the year, and the Pittsburgh CLO, which produces its own Broadway productions.
“To build a show like this, collaboration comes first,” said Shelly Fuerte, the PSO’s vice president of popular programming and an executive producer for this version of “Fiddler.”
She said the PSO is working in tandem with the CLO to produce the show.
“Next, it’s about licensing,” Fuerte explained. Music Theatre International licenses most Broadway shows and will block applications that would see multiple versions of the same show in a single city, with preference given for actual Broadway touring productions. Put another way, if there had been a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” touring through Pittsburgh this year, the symphony would not have been able to secure the license to also perform it.
This isn’t the symphony’s first foray into musical theatre, but it’s been 15 years since the orchestra last programmed a full musical. (It was the “Music Man,” in 2009.)
“This is really a marriage of what Broadway does and what orchestra pops presentations is,” Fuerte said. “I think it’s becoming a trend.”
Other orchestras around the country like the National Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops have experimented with programming Broadway shows.
Pittsburgh’s orchestra has already programmed another (not yet announced) show next year.
Currently, there aren’t yet enough arrangements of musicals for large orchestras for this to really take wing yet, and orchestras are still establishing proof of concept.
Still, if it’s anything like the explosive “live-with-film” concerts, it could be a new viable path for revenue generation.
Shuler Hensley stars alongside Anne L. Nathan as Tevye and Golde. Andy Einhorn conducts. Direction and choreography by Gustavo Zajac. PSO violinist Jeremy Black performs as the fiddler.
Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com. His work at the Post-Gazette is supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Getty Foundation and Rubin Institute.
First Published: February 20, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 21, 2024, 7:53 p.m.
