Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article focuses on the notion of cultural omnivorousness, as coined by Richard Peterson, to explore its various manifestations within the American musical, commonly known as the Broadway musical. Through two interconnected research questions, we explore how patterns of cultural omnivorousness are manifested within the American musical, contemporarily and in a historical perspective, and scrutinize what these omnivorous features demand from performers, more specifically, what it takes to perform what we name the omnivorous voice. Using the American musical as a site for exploration, the article aims to show that the omnivorousness is not only enjoyed by its audiences, but produced, brought about and enjoyed by its composers, producers and performers alike. Consequently, the article’s main argument is that the phenomenon of cultural omnivorousness not only concerns cultural consumption but is to be regarded as a matter of cultural production as well, manifested ultimately as specific artistic and embodied practices. The article conveys a theoretically informed discussion, drawing on works written within the fields of cultural sociology, musicology and voice studies, while incorporating illustrative references to specific recorded musical works and the vocal behaviours of named performers.

Keywords

American musical Broadway musical cultural consumption cultural omnivorousness cultural production the omnivorous voice

Introduction

The concept and phenomenon of cultural omnivorousness has been hot on the cultural sociology agenda ever since Peterson and his collaborators introduced it in the early 1990s (Peterson, 1992; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Peterson and Simkus, 1992). Over time, it has been explored from different angles and within various cultural formats and contexts, proving to lend itself well to exploring the changing dynamics of post- or late-modern cultural life. Such explorations have contributed to fine-tuning, but also troubling, our understanding of the culturally broad-consuming figure of the cultural omnivore and how omnivorization might manifest differently across time, space and place in the field of cultural consumption.

In this article, we focus on the notion of cultural omnivorousness to explore its various manifestations within the American musical, more commonly known as the Broadway musical. We aim to show, through our exploration, that the American musical can be understood as a rapidly changing form of musical theatre, one which includes a wide range of musical genres in its repertoire and is prone to absorb and draw upon whatever musical style is needed to suit its purpose (Green et al., 2014; Hoch, 2018; Kayes, 2015; Melton, 2007). Moreover, we argue that the demands that the contemporary American musical places on its performers bring about a turn from univorous to omnivorous practitioners, ultimately manifested all the way down to the level of the vocal folds, through the performers inhabiting, assembling and performing what we have chosen to name the omnivorous voice. In this article, our choice to focus on voice and vocal behaviour and not on other parts of performance, is motivated by the point that the voice is the musical’s ‘single principal instrument’ (Symonds, 2018: 151) and is considered ‘the currency by which musicals exchange value’ (Jake Johnson, personal correspondence, 24 June 2020). We do, however, throughout, name our practitioners performers, as we argue that musical theatre performers today are commonly considered ‘triple threats’ – mastering the art of acting, singing and dancing – and will seldom refer to themselves as purely singers.

We align our work with previous research on cultural omnivorousness (for a brief overview, please see later in this article) in that music is used as the prime cultural content through which the phenomenon of omnivorousness is understood and measured. However, we depart from previous understandings by expanding the concept not only to encompass modes and patterns of cultural consumption but to include the field of cultural production. Thereby recognizing that the broad, hybrid and fragmented omnivorous musical taste patterns that the American musical elicits are not only enjoyed by its audiences, but also produced, brought about, and enjoyed by its composers, producers and performers alike. Drawing on the original meaning of the suffixes of -vorous and -vore – commonly understood as the act of or the creature engaged in feeding on a broad variety of foods – we argue that the American musical’s composers, producers and performers, through their aesthetic choices, can be seen as feeding voraciously on a wide range of musics in order to bring this genre into life. Thereby, they create a broad variety of musical works that the ‘original’ omnivores – the audience – can consume. Consequently, the research questions we ask in this article are the following:

How is cultural omnivorousness manifested in the American musical with respect to patterns of cultural consumption as well as production – contemporarily and in a historical perspective?

What do the omnivorous features of the American musical demand from its performers, or, in other words, what does it take to perform the omnivorous voice?

Setting out to identify possible answers to our questions, we draw on works written within the fields of cultural sociology (e.g. Bennett et al., 1999; Ollivier, 2008; Warde et al., 2007), musicology (e.g. Block, 2002, 2009; Knapp et al., 2018a, 2018b; Taylor, 2012) and voice studies (e.g. Eidsheim, 2019, LoVetri et al., 2014; Macpherson, 2019). We see our work as a theoretically informed discussion, combining a historical perspective on musical theatre with contemporary issues of embodiment and performance. However, as the written history of musical theatre is highly the history of composers and written works, and not one of performance practices, we will throughout the article refer to specific recordings and performers to strengthen our argumentation and illustrate our points. We recognize that approaching omnivorousness in this way departs from Peterson’s empiricist works to a great extent. Still, given that little attention has been shown towards whether, or how, the phenomenon of cultural omnivorousness can be found within practices of cultural production, we believe that this article’s main contribution lies in exploring an overarching thought of ‘what if cultural producers become omnivorous as well?’¹ Peterson (1997) himself addressed the need for this type of research:

Even if plurality is considered post modernistic bricolage, the question still remains, which bricks are selected together by some groups of people and which are rejected only to be picked up and formed into other meaningful structures? Thus, as I see it, the exciting research challenge now is to learn how this vast plurality of popular music is sorted and recombined by artists, by the people in the industry. (1997: 55)

More recently, Hazir and Warde (2016) have argued that cultural sociology would benefit from deciphering ‘the ways in which omnivorous repertories are formed, transmitted and experienced’ (2016: 86) in the interrelationship between conditions of cultural production, institutionalized repertoires and individual tastes. Similarly, Wright (2011) argues that ‘debates about the social patterns of taste need to take greater account of changed practices of cultural production [. . .] of the ways culture is produced, circulated and valued’ (2011: 355). It is within this area that our research takes place, exploring the omnivorous traits of the American musical, all the way down to the miniscule muscles involved in regulating the vocal apparatus and assembling vocal behaviours.

Cultural Omnivorousness: The New (Musical) Sign of Cultural Capital

Cultural omnivorousness and the notion of the cultural omnivore as coined by Peterson (1992; see also Peterson and Kern, 1996; Peterson and Simkus, 1992) are built on the empirical observation that ‘high status Americans [are] far more likely than others to consume the fine arts [and] to be involved in a wide range of low-status activities’ (Peterson and Kern, 1996: 900). In this understanding, cultural omnivorousness denotes a development of taste processes, where, over time, cultural consumers in western countries were found to have an increased breadth of cultural taste and a willingness to cross established hierarchical genre boundaries when consuming art and cultural activities.² Building on Bourdieu’s (1984) notion of symbolic and cultural capital, but challenging ‘the Bourdieuan assumption of the strict homology between social class and consumption’ (Santoro, 2008: 50), the omnivore figure suggests a ‘qualitative shift in the basis for marking elite status’ (Peterson and Kern, 1996: 900), defining ‘a cultural consumer characterized by conspicuous diversity rather than refinement and exclusion’ (Rossman and Peterson, 2015: 139).

The notion of the omnivore has inspired a number of studies worldwide, spanning much of Europe, Australia and North America (Bennett et al., 1999; Bennett et al., 2009; Cutts and Widdop, 2017; Ollivier, 2008; van Eijck, 2001; Warde et al., 2007; see also Peterson, 2005 for an extended overview). Commonly, when studies of cultural omnivorousness are conducted, music is used as a case, implying that higher-status groups in society have expanded their tastes into a broader segment of music than lower-status groups, the latter contrastingly seen as more univore in their consumption patterns. The more genres one likes, the more omnivorous one supposedly is, but the diversity is also connected to mobility between key sociological categorical types, such as high, middle, and lowbrow (Savage and Gayo, 2011). Peterson (1992) explains the choice of music as a case, claiming that, ‘unlike questions about activities attended, time or money spent, all respondents are equally able to respond [to explain their preferences for music] no matter where they live or whatever other demands there are on their resources’ (1992: 247). Additionally, the use of music as an indicator of aesthetic tastes indicates a conception of musical genres as easily classified into hierarchical taste categories (Peterson and Kern, 1996). Thereby, with music, one can measure genres liked as an indicator of breadth in tastes and gain an understanding of taste hierarchies (Rossman and Peterson, 2015). This carries the assumption, confirmed by Bennett et al. (2009), that music constitutes an important site for cultural negotiation, being ‘the most divided, contentious, cultural field of any [examined . . .] central to [the] concern with probing contemporary cultural dynamics and tensions’ (2009: 75).

In this article, we operationalize the omnivore as a figure consuming, gorging, on a wide variety of musical genres, with a willingness to cross genre borders within and across high and low categorizations of musics, arguing that their broad taste patterns symbolize and attract high status in the omnivore’s social world. Nonetheless, as previously stated, we do depart from Peterson in not fixing the omnivore to the role of the cultural consumer. Operationalizing omnivorousness in the form of the volume, composition and orientation of musics liked, utilizes musics in their objectified form, manifested most often as predefined genre categories. Musical genre categories typically define types or kinds of music grouped together with other similar kinds of musics, based on kindred cultural traditions and conventions. Noteworthy, however, these kinds of musics are commonly categorized by more than their common musical features, as such groupings often ‘hinge on elements of nationality, class, race, gender or sexuality’ (Brackett, 2016: 4) as well. Genres are thereby considered a way for the music industry to organize itself, for radios to decide what to play, for musicians to promote themselves, for venues creating booking profiles, for audiences seeking musics to enjoy and people to enjoy them with (Silver et al., 2016), and for researchers organizing their research. With respect to previous omnivorousness research, the Broadway musical is mostly classified as a specific musical genre juxtaposing, for example, rock, bluegrass, or classical and further defined as a middlebrow form of musical output (Peterson and Kern, 1996; Savage and Gayo, 2011). This article, however, shows the American musical as a genre within the larger art form of musical theatre – defined by its combination of song, music, acting, visual spectacle, and most often dancing – and in which many genres within the larger art form of music, such as rock, folk, hip hop and jazz are in play. In this regard, we are aware that, for instance, when an American musical is labelled a ‘rock musical’, it might more correctly be seen as written ‘in the style of rock’, as it usually only absorbs certain elements of the musical genre, enough to make it recognizable as rock, but without including all elements that the genre might obtain, such as its performers, fans, way of life, or presentational mode. In this article, we therefore implement the term musical style to describe a somewhat coherent set of musical performance practices within a genre, acknowledging that a specific musical genre might consist of a variety of (sub-)styles, such as West-Coast rap or New Orleans jazz. We also implement the term musical idiom to denote specific musical traits within a style, such as elements of phrasing, dynamics, or excess sound effects (Fisher et al., 2019). When it comes to vocal idioms, these elements are mainly not notated in the written score but are elements learned and transmitted through sonic information (Taylor, 2012), in the American musical typically made accessible by a show’s (original) cast recording (von Germeten, 2021).

We also acknowledge that utilizing predetermined genre categorizations in our research follows a trajectory that somewhat problematically relies on assumptions about the rigidness and stability of a musical genre over time. Such classification acts may ignore specific genres or exclude subdivisions or styles within predefined categories. Musical genres are complex and fluid (Savage and Gayo, 2011), and their boundaries, consumption patterns, and performance practices are constantly negotiated. Thus, we acknowledge that musical genres continually emerge and evolve, sometimes even disappear (Vlegels and Lievens, 2017), and that both a genre’s labelling and its contents are constantly a matter of discussion and negotiation.

The Contemporary American Musical: Patterns of Omnivorous Consumption

The American musical and its geographical focal point – Broadway, New York City – is often considered unapologetically commercial³ with an audience described as urban, middle- and upper-class, and white (Decker, 2018), well-off, well-educated and predominantly female (Dvoskin, 2018), having considerably more economical and educational capital than most Americans (Savran, 2018). In the omnivorousness literature, it is argued that such a high-status audience’s willingness to consume a broad repertoire of genres, is often justified as a desire to learn new things, to stimulate one’s mind, or as the ability to confidently conduct aesthetic interpretation and judgment across genres (see Ollivier, 2008). In other words, such omnivorous consumption is seen as a form of ‘enlightened eclecticism’⁴ (Regev, 2013: 15). Regev’s concept captures a mode of consumption also described by Peterson and Kern (1996), in which omnivores do not necessarily see themselves as hardcore fans liking everything indiscriminately. Rather, they may ‘appreciate and critique it [the cultural content] in the light of some knowledge of the genre, its great performers, and links to other cultural forms’ (1996: 904).

Ollivier (2008) argues that within this type of omnivorousness, a ‘proper’ distance to the artwork in question is upheld, sometimes combined with an ironic attitude allowing for an emotional distance between the consumer and the object. Notably, the Broadway musical is frequently seen to inhabit such ironic distance within itself. To value musical theatre on its own terms is to accept a ‘too muchness’ (Johnson et al., 2019: 47), a genre that is exaggerative, campy, self-reflexive, ‘pastichy’, overly emotional, with people bursting out into song and dance at the slightest provocation. Arguably, we consider the musical as more multi-layered than this. However, such a well-established mental picture may offer the distance needed to allow oneself to appreciate the genre and its diverse musical styles as a ‘guilty pleasure’ without losing face or status.

Savran (2004) claims that ‘no theatre form is as single-mindedly devoted to producing pleasure, inspiring spectators to tap their feet, sing along, or otherwise be carried away’ (2004: 215), and according to Wolff (2018), we watch musicals for much the same reasons as we watch the Olympics: to fulfil a human desire to test limits, expressions and talents of the human body; ‘the stakes are high and live bodies can’t fake the necessary effort’ (Wolff, 2018: 13). Which sport, or in this case, which musical, we end up seeing, however, may in this context not be of primary importance, leading to a reappearing curation of a wide variety of shows that are considered to have been imbued with ‘cultural capital and become “the thing to see” whether the show itself seems particularly interesting to a given spectator’ (Dvoskin, 2018: 135). A person exhibiting this way of consuming culture is described by Warde et al. (2007) as the unassuming omnivore, one who chooses recent best-selling books, popular television programs, or established rock or pop artists, demonstrating little sense of adventure or critical sense, liking a bit of everything (see also Ollivier, 2008). The strong tradition of the revival in Broadway theatre, offering an already successful back catalogue of Broadway classics to new generations and audiences, may be seen as one result of this.

Omnivorousness as the Trick of Production: The Art of Musical Citing

When shows live or die by their ticket sales (Dvoskin, 2018), a matrix of commercial necessity may also turn into a constant search for ‘the next new’ (Morris, 2018). Hence, musical theatre producers and investors might act as gentrifying or appropriating agents of various popular music genres and styles, searching for the next big hit, leading to an increased number of jukebox and bio-musicals with already built-in audiences, or to an absorbance of contemporary, already financially successful, popular musical genres, resulting in so-called ‘pop-musicals’ or ‘folk-musicals’. This might create a safe space for omnivorous audiences tasting and consuming musical styles and genres they otherwise would not consult, as long as other elements of the musical are intact, for example, the combination of singing, dancing and acting. This is in line with what Bennett et al. (2009) name short-range omnivorousness, a mode which involves consuming ‘cognate musical forms’ (2009: 77). Noteworthy, however, is that an incorporated genre or style might change or adapt in this absorption process. It might be made more exclusive, maybe even unaffordable to their original possessors, or changed, weakened, or broken in their ‘primary nature’. Consequently, the history of the American musical carries a trajectory of critique when it comes to cultural appropriation, representation, and the borders between being influenced, sampling and stealing. In its early days, this was mainly linked to the act of blackface minstrelsy or other stereotyping of ethnic groups, including ‘pigtail-wearing, bucktoothed Asians; whiskey-guzzling, belligerent Irishmen; wurst-gobbling, beer-swilling Germans’ (Wollman, 2017: 15). In recent days, musicals such as Disney’s Moana (Miranda et al., 2016) have faced accusations of musical ethnocentrism, wrapping Polynesian musical traits within western idioms and formats, thereby illustrating ‘a musical recapitulation of white men’s control and marketing of the representations of marginalized people’ (Armstrong, 2018: 112).

Despite the American musical’s all-encompassing demand for market success, a Broadway show is equally measured by how it is received by peers, expressed through industry awards and favourable reviews (Thomas, 2019). Hence, prevalent artistic values such as innovation, creativity, authenticity, and freedom of cultural expression may also lead composers and producers to include a variety of genres and styles, in which artists ‘from below’ expand the frames of the American musical in an almost activist way, opening up a path for genres that historically have been marginalized. The story of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the musical Hamilton (Miranda, 2015) serves as an example of this, bringing rap and hip-hop culture to Broadway with triumph across all success parameters (Shishko, 2019). In Hamilton, Miranda uses, as is commonly practiced by most musical theatre composers, music as a form of subtext, expressing notions of the play’s geographical centre, qualities of a specific character, or the overall scene-specific dramatic narrative, ‘evoking an appropriate “atmosphere” by adopting specific styles of song, and of singing’ (Morris and Knapp, 2018: 250). Implementing a specific idiom, such as a melody that sounds foreign, for example, a pentatonic one, may raise the mental picture of ‘the Oriental’; utilizing a complex cross-rhythm may evoke the idea of Latin America (Decker, 2018). In Hamilton, Miranda, with his background in slam poetry, uses rap to capture the overall ‘essence’ of the show – the rebellious spirit of the American founding fathers – the same way Pasek and Paul in Dear Evan Hanson (Pasek and Paul, 2017) tell the story of a boy struggling in the age of social media through pop music very similar to what is heard on the radio today. Musically styling a show’s narrative with cultural codes additionally enables different styles to be at play within the same musical ‘without needing to answer to the standards of unity that opera and other “serious” musical genres seem to demand’ (Morris and Knapp, 2018: 252). Citing and using music as subtext in this eclectic manner, links the musical to contemporary postmodern values, where acts such as borrowing, even plagiarism, may become part of the process of making and consuming art and where art is viewed as a ‘pool of permanently usable resources’ (Bauman, 1988: 792).

Nevertheless, for music to work as subtext, composers and producers within the American musical rely on relatively stable, immediately accessible and recognizable audible categorizations of musical genres and styles to make its citations work. This may, as previously described, foster the idea that there is such a thing as an underlying unity, a stable meaning, linked to musical genres, styles, or how people sound. For example, when all four plays nominated for ‘Best Musical’ in 2010 were written in the style of rock, New York Times critic Jon Pareles (2010) wrote: ‘Broadway may be the final place in America, if not the known universe, where rock still registers as rebellious’. The Broadway musical thereby constitutes associations to genres that become ‘increasingly potent as cultural habits become ingrained, and as popular music uses stereotypical signifiers to short-cut meanings’ (Taylor and Symonds, 2014: 32). Further, these ‘broad brushes of Broadway’ might additionally make the single body of the performer ‘bear the burden of representation, signifying more than simply an individual, standing in for the very idea or whole category of [. . .] people’ (Wolf, 2018: 37).

In addition to citing and refracting⁵ a multitude of musical genres and styles, the American musical also engulfs and transforms other cultural expressions, resulting in sub-genres such as the cabaret, the film musical, the television series musical, cast recordings, and the animated musical, as well as the tendency to base its content on many sources, including literature, screen (film or TV), plays, real people or events, other musicals and operas (Hodge, 2020). These additions are also part of what enables, justifies and assembles what we name the omnivorous voice, which we will turn to next, arguing that the omnivorous features, and hence, the vocal demands placed on the performers in contemporary American musical theatre not only voice omnivorousness at the level of the genre, but require that the performer assembles and performs an omnivorous voice.

A Brief History of Voice in the American Musical

To explore and conceptualize our notion of the omnivorous voice, we begin by paying attention to the American musical’s history and its changing aesthetic values. Though musical theatre history studies reveal no single linear development of relationships that tell the whole (hi)story of the genre (Taylor and Symonds, 2014), it is arguable that an eclectic aptitude has existed, not only within contemporary times but since its beginnings in the early 20th century. Stemming from a mix of influences, such as Tin Pan Alley, burlesque, extravaganza, minstrelsy and vaudeville – all historically considered commercial, lowbrow art forms – it merged with more well-regarded middlebrow classifications, such as the European operetta – exemplified by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, such as HMS Pinafore (Sullivan, 2006) – to become what we recognize as the American musical today (Hodge, 2020; Knapp et al., 2018a). A significant work from this era can be defined as Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat from 1927. Show Boat is often described as a ‘light opera’ (Block, 2009: 20) or the ‘greatest of all American Operettas’ (2009: 21), written in an almost ‘Wagnerian fashion’ (2009: 28), by many recognized as constituting the first American Musical (Wollman, 2017). Even though Kern’s score cites and thus offers a ‘jazzy feeling’, drawing additionally on blues and spirituals,⁶ the performed vocal parts lean heavily on western lyrical, classical idioms, such as extended use of so-called head voice by all female singers singing above the note of A4 (American Standard Pitch Notation), and a frequent use of vibrato, modified vowels and portamenti. This way of singing is, and was, often named as singing in a legit voice (see e.g. Kayes, 2015), by many then considered ‘the only singing acceptable in civilized and proper society’ (Edwin, 2007: 213). Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (Gershwin, 2009) from 1934 is another significant show favouring pentatonic melodies, jazz progressions and blue notes (Block, 2002, 2009), however, with vocals performed in a nearly operatic manner. Thus, it can be argued that the omnivorousness present in these early days of the American musical was executed by composers citing and mixing musical genres and styles rather than performed as vocal behaviours. Noteworthy is also that the performers in this era were considered specialists, embodying particular types of roles, rotating between leads and character parts, depending on the show’s style (Dvoskin, 2018). According to Clum (2018),

[t]he chorus was split into singers and dancers. Comics didn’t have to be very good singers. Big-voiced singers weren’t expected to be great actors [. . .] The baritone who sang the big ballads wasn’t expected to have comic timing [. . .] Singers with legitimate voices weren’t expected to belt [. . .] Acting was definitely secondary to quasi-operatic singing (2018: 226).

Moving towards the middle of the 20th century, composers, librettists and producers continued to create works aiming to pull towards what was considered more intellectual, ‘morally dignified’ art forms, such as opera and legitimate theatre, emulating these ‘highbrow forms while making them more accessible’ (Savran, 2018: 82). The goal was an integrated musical, moving seamlessly from spoken word to song to dance as if the same person created all elements (Taylor, 2012). In the still-standing narrative of a ‘Golden Age’ within the Broadway musical, extending from about 1940 until 1960 (Morris, 2018), characters became more realistically portrayed and psychologized like in non-musical works (Knapp et al., 2018a), changing the Broadway composers’ status once and for all from mere tunesmiths, often writing not plot- or character-connected songs, to the idea of the composers as dramatists (Grossman, 2018). A full orchestral sound was additionally implemented attempting to ‘[assist] the ideological claim to high-art status that the musical has always encouraged’ in the belief that ‘[i]f musicals use classical or “legit” frameworks and terminology, they become increasingly valued artistically and culturally’ (Symonds, 2018: 158). Bernstein’s Candide from 1956 (Bernstein, 2018) or Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel from 1945 (Rodgers, 2009), are considered significant works in this regard.

As elements of jazz, blues and spirituals were present on the Broadway stage during this period, to some degree, was also the belting voice.⁷ However, the dominant vocal expression was still melodies composed for classically trained voices, though with tessituras generally lower and more limited than for the operatic repertoire, to enable lyrics to come through (Taylor, 2012). The classical voice was also the only singing offered within singing tuition. The belted voice, on the other hand, was mostly defined as a ‘natural’ voice (Taylor, 2012); the often-told anecdote of Gershwin ordering belting star Ethel Merman to ‘never go near a voice teacher’ (Bryan, 1992: 5) arguably exemplifies this. Additionally, a belting voice was often described using negative terms such as ‘unsupported’ or ‘unprojected’ singing (Salzman and Desi, 2008), or as singing lacking sophistication (Taylor, 2012).

However, moving further into the second half of the 1900s, an array of musical genres entered the American musical theatre stage. In the late 1960s, the first ‘rock musical’, Hair (MacDermot, 2003), made it to Broadway. And in the late 1970s, rhythm and blues, gospel and soul started to fill the scores (Laird, 2018) with shows such as Dreamgirls (Krieger, 2006). Until now, male performers had sung in more chest-like vocal qualities to ‘perform masculinity’; their romantic counterparts were typically cast as ‘soaring sopranos’. This drastically changed with the entrance of rock, as heard in Jesus Christ Superstar (Lloyd Webber, 2021), where both Judas and Jesus let their ‘falsettos’ shine, while the female lead, Maria Magdalena, is written in a lower range, featuring chest and speech-like sounds, not showcasing her head voice at all (Macpherson, 2019; Taylor, 2012). The 1980s followed with pop-influenced works, larger casts, spectacular sets, and eye-catching costumes (Wollman, 2017). These shows were often composed-through and written featuring big vocal parts, as heard in Les Miserables (Schönberg, 1987).⁸ The 1990s came with mega-musicals such as The Lion King (John, 1997), and jukebox musicals built on established popular music acts, for example ABBA’s Mamma Mia (Andersson and Ulvaeus, 1999). Turning to the post-millennium, a wide variety of musical genres were all transformed from states of antagonist to novelty to mainstay in the musical theatre’s repertoire: country, as heard in 9 To 5 – The Musical (Parton, 2009), soul, as in Beautiful – The Carole King Musical (King, 2014), rap, as made impactful in Hamilton (Miranda, 2015), folk, as flourishing in Hadestown (Mitchell, 2019) and world music, as heard in The Band’s Visit (Yazbek, 2017). Thereby, a wide variety of vocal sounds and idioms entered Broadway, from quirky vocal breaks, via rough vocal effects, to a varied use of ornamentations and ad-libs; vocal behaviours made possible to incorporate onto the large stages due to the entrance of advanced technological equipment and the use of head microphones in the musical theatre scene (Macpherson, 2019; Taylor, 2012).

Significant in regard and to our argumentation is that the vocal expectations of the single performer changed during these decades, coinciding with the increased breadth and variety of works and musical styles included. Today, musical re-skilling – a broadening of one’s artistic practice – is described as crucial to obtain sustainability, employability and success within the musical theatre profession (Green et al., 2014; Hoch, 2018; Kayes, 2015). As expressed by LoVetri et al. (2014): ‘Everybody needs to sing everything’ (2014: 65). Voice in the American musical is thereby seen as inhabiting a so-called vicarious state, where performers express something on behalf of another, using sounds that do not exclusively ‘belong’ to the performers themselves, at the same time, the performers constitute this ‘other’ by giving them voice (Johnson, 2019). In a vicarious state, vocal behaviour always changes according to the vocal demands embarked upon in a piece or a part, and performers are expected to sing a show in one style at night, rehearsing a completely different show during the day, maybe auditioning for a third – all within different musical styles and idioms (Melton, 2007). In other words, the performer needs to master an omnivorous voice gorging on a wide variety of vocal aesthetics. The privilege of singing a specific fach⁹ is no longer an option (LoVetri, 2007; Saunders-Barton, 2007), and according to Melton (2007), virtually any sound that is safely produced may be useful, including shouts and screams, blurring the line between song and speech. LeBorgne (2007) argues that:

today’s musical theatre composers are starting to push the vocal boundaries of what the human voice is capable of. Inevitably, there is a singer out there who can do what composers are writing and then they write bigger and better songs. I think we are getting into an age of vocal acrobatics. (2007: 13)

According to Wilson (2007):

[i]t is classical, it is gospel, it is rock and roll, it is pop, it is Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, it’s rap. It is world music, it is jazz [. . .] Every range of music is catered for in Musical Theatre, so you cannot be a snob. You cannot say ‘Oh, I want to do Musical Theatre but I only want to work in a legit voice’. Well, you can, but you’re not going to make money for your agent and you’re not going to make money for you, QED you’re not going to be in the business, and show business is called a business. (2007: 156)

Even though an increasing range of popular musics are seen as the current norm of the present-day musical theatre profession, as Wilson highlights, the legit voice is still highly present, possibly due to the strong position of Sondheim’s renowned works such as Sweeney Todd (Sondheim, 1979). But also new musicals such as The Light in the Piazza (Guettel, 2005) or A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Lutvak and Freedman, 2014) keep the classical vocal idioms alive, making the omnivorous voice even broader in its aesthetical absorption and practices.

Performing the Omnivorous Voice

All humans, when not in disease or having physical irregularities, possess the same anatomical parts; however, the utilization of these, the physiology of the voice, is a matter of practices (Edgerton, 2014). Performers are able to manipulate the different parts of their vocal apparatus, their vocal fold vibrational patterns, their subglottal air pressure, and their vocal tract configuration to create diverse and desired vocal outcomes. Ultimately, all singing training is built on assisting such alterations. Even though performers work hard to make their singing styles and vocal techniques appear natural, they ‘are culturally based articulations, are neither “natural” nor unchanging, they alter over time to new technologies, new compositions, and changing tastes [. . .] existing within a geographical, linguistic and historical context’ (Taylor and Symonds, 2014: 38). According to Johnson et al. (2019), singing is ‘a citational practice’ (2019: 35); we always cite our teachers from whom we have learned the song. It is arguable, nonetheless, that this citing starts long before taking voice lessons. For example, our voices are the citation of our mother tongue’s melody line, the voices of our parents, the sound of the songs we have heard, the vocal traditions we are raised within, and the vowels of our spoken language. Symonds (2014) underlines that ‘the sung’ is not created in one body; the individual voice becomes layered, creating a new texture by the many voices outside. Such an encultured conception of the voice does not argue that the varying sizes and dimensions of the singers’ cavities and anatomical structures – for example the thickness and length of one’s vocal folds – do not play a role in shaping, enabling and limiting the individual voice. However, these biomechanical aspects do not alone constitute the vocal output, or a singer’s perceived ‘voiceprint’ (Hall, 2006).

The American musical theatre star Jessie Mueller may serve as a vivid example of someone embodying and mastering our conception of the omnivorous voice. Mueller possesses an impressive resumé of being nominated four times at the Tony Awards in the category ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical’. In 2012 she was nominated for the revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,¹⁰ capturing the part of Melinda Wells – ‘no longer a love-crossed English beauty from the 18th century but a feisty big-band singer from the early 1940s’ (Brantley, 2011) – featuring vocal idioms such as a brassy ‘Broadway belt’, great volumes and excessive vocal effects, vocal behaviours commonly found in swing-era songs. In 2014 she was nominated and won for her role as pop-soul singer and composer Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (King, 2014), evoking ‘Ms. King’s distinctively throaty, ever-yearning voice without mimicry’ (Brantley, 2014). In 2016, Mueller performed the part of Jenna Hunterson in Waitress (Bareilles, 2016), which draws ‘on the sounds of country music reflecting the Southern setting, but also containing more traditional Broadway-pop balladry’ (Isherwood, 2016). Here Mueller used softer, more ‘polished’ belted sounds, soft and airy speech-like voice qualities, and small, audible, quirky vocal breaks. Her third Tony Award came with the 2018 Broadway revival of Carousel (Rodgers, 2018), starring as Julie Jordan beside world-renowned opera singer Renée Fleming,¹¹ showcasing a seemingly legit or classically trained voice, with long lines, evenness across registers, combining ‘strength and serenity, quiet joy and accepting sadness, qualities that flow through her liquid soprano’ (Brantley, 2018). Adding Mueller’s country performance of Loretta Lynn in the biographical drama television film Patsy and Loretta (Khouri, 2019) to this short resumé, her case should serve well as an exemplification of an American musical omnivorous practitioner. Even though Mueller is to be seen as an elite performer, we argue that today’s expectation of mastering an omnivorous voice applies to ‘all’ musical theatre performers – also ensemble members, understudies and swings – as manifested in musical theatre education curricula worldwide, as well as in the single performer’s audition book, containing commonly 8–10 songs spanning across history and musical styles, composed as a variety of ballads, up-tempo, dramatic and ‘comic relief’ songs (Moore, 2017).

Seen from a vocal technical stand, we argue that the omnivorous voice is a fruitful term and conceptualization within voice studies and voice studios as well as within cultural sociological contexts. We argue that the term expresses the volume and intensity of vocal aesthetics involved when performing musical theatre and offers an understanding of vocal practice as physiological behaviour constantly in dialogue with plural (and changing) aesthetic valuations, traditions and tastes. The term also implies a voice view where vocal technique is divisible into bricks and pieces, combinable to your (or others’) aesthetic likings and preferences. In other words, we argue, borrowing the phrasings of Eidsheim (2019), that the omnivorous voice highlights that ‘voice is not singular, it is collective. Voice is not innate, it is cultural’ (2019: 9). Arguably, the example of Mueller illustrates this way of theorizing voice in an excellent manner. Even from the perspective of a trained musical-vocal ear, we argue, it is impossible to judge which of Mueller’s voices are to be defined as ‘true’, ‘authentic’, or with ‘which she was born’, concluding that how we sound or sing is not a predetermined matter, but a result of having a broad pattern of possible sounds available, or unavailable, to our vocal becoming. Consequently, both formal and informal voice training may bring out, or dampen, certain parts of our voices’ almost infinite aesthetic potentialities. Building a well-equipped, broad technical and aesthetic toolbox, in other words, cross-training the voice (Greschner, 2019), may foster creativity and expand artistic expression, and thus strengthen a singer’s uniqueness and perceived artistic quality, and hence the status, in form of the skill to express, perform and, importantly, to change between broad, diverse, subtle and complex musical meanings, styles and idioms. However, the notion of the omnivorous voice might consequently exchange a commonly expressed quest for authenticity within the American musical (LoVetri et al., 2014) into a quest for believability. Thus, what it ultimately takes to perform the omnivorous voice in a professional, high-status kind of way is to be able to take in, gorge on – and combine – knowledge, understanding and mastery of a broad variety of musical codes, and amalgamate these elements into vocal behaviours in a believable manner.

Concluding Remarks and Implications for Future Research

We have aimed to show throughout this article that the omnivorousness prevalent in the American musical consists of broad, hybrid and fragmented musical consumption patterns in the form of included – gorged on – musical genres, styles, appropriations, citations and performance practices. Further, we argue that the various omnivorous features of the American musical have a bearing on the vocal demands that the field affords, on applied sound qualities, and on the vocal techniques used to develop these, all the way down to the mini muscles regulating our vocal apparatus. Omnivorousness thereby becomes a term not only conceptualizing consumers’ actions, but the doings of producers, composers and performers alike. The adjective broad, in this regard, implies liking, absorbing, feeding on, and performing a high volume of various idioms, styles and genres, combined with a willingness to cross historical taste classifications. The hybrid side of omnivorousness acknowledges the fluid, changing nature of musical styles, as omnivorous consumption, production and performance patterns may lead to refraction, appropriation and gentrification, not only of musical genres, but also of elements from other art fields, altogether constituting new, hybrid musical art forms and expressions. The fragmented side of omnivorousness allows for only certain elements – bricks and pieces of the appreciated or absorbed – to be consumed. These are not to be seen as loose elements floating independently or arbitrarily around, but as pieces entangled and assembled through meaning-making acts of citing and sampling. Thus, utilizing the American musical as a case for exploration makes it possible to see how omnivorousness may blur the symbolic boundaries of musical genres, styles and contents. Paradoxically, our exploration also makes visible how omnivorousness potentially congeals and illuminates genres and genre borders, whose significance and meaning may vary across contexts. Noteworthy in this regard is that the agile, conspicuously diverse, musically indiscriminate, multi-layered, highly commercialized, high-status, omnivorous American musical, despite its expressed pluralities, always ends up voicing itself in a singular manner – as a Musical.

Commenting on our conceptualization of the term the omnivorous voice, literally speaking, no one can be omnivorous in its total sense, feasting on and performing every musical style available or at the same time. However, with regards to the American musical, at this point in our train of thoughts, there seems to be no, or few, limitations to the potential extent and volume of omnivorousness attached, especially when it comes to the performers. The moment something new appears, either validated by the market, peers, or expert success, it seems to render compulsory incorporation into the expectations of the body and vocal behaviour of the performer. However, as previous writings on the ‘original’ cultural omnivorousness underline (see e.g. Bennett et al., 2009), some musical borders might be more difficult to cross than others, resulting in both inclusionary and exclusionary outcomes. Thus, within the American musical, questions of what, and who, is being included and excluded from the business, and on what terms, are more present than ever, and arguably of interest for future research.

As we see it, moving the omnivorousness term and its theoretical framework from the field of consumption into the field of cultural production potentially opens up new avenues for empirical and theoretical research on cultural tastes, participations, appropriations and performances. Linked to our notion of the omnivorous voice, this could be articulated in questions relating to symbolic boundaries regulating, for example, who is allowed to sing, who is allowed to sing what, where, and for whom, and – not least – who is allowed to sing in any particular way. Further research may be conceptualized to scrutinize how performing the omnivorous voice is experienced or how it can be taught, bringing clarity to what characterizes omnivorous performers. It would also be interesting to explore if performing omnivorousness is a specific vocal trait within musical theatre or if it plays out similarly in other parts of musical theatre performances, for example within dance parts or amongst musicians in the pit orchestra, or how omnivorousness potentially plays out within other musical genres or other art forms. Not only with regard to ‘who likes and performs what’, but to how omnivorousness is negotiated, justified, or exhibited, for example, linked to ongoing discussions about employability, ideas of the ‘portfolio’ performer, or values such as artistic freedom. Here, writings on the nature of cultural valuation could be seen as fruitful to incorporate. One could, for example, move in the direction of Varriale (2015), theorizing cultural evaluation as a ‘social encounter between the dispositions of social actors [. . .] and the aural, visual and narrative properties of cultural objects’ (2015: 160), or towards Hennion (2015) regarding taste as a performative act that transforms, engages and is felt, and further involves skills and sensitizing. All things considered, moving the omnivorousness framework from consumption to production arguably also opens up the possibility for an overarching discussion about the role of tastes amongst performers in the process of making art; as we see it, a rather unexplored research field within cultural sociology.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank their colleagues at The Norwegian Academy of Music, in particular Professor Sigrid Røyseng, and Professor Håkon Larsen at Oslo Metropolitan University, as well as the anonymous peer reviewers for constructive comments and views on this article in progress.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Guro von Germeten

Notes

Author biographies

Guro von Germeten is a research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Centre for Educational Research in Music (CERM), writing her doctoral thesis on vocal tastes and vocal behaviours in contemporary Musical Theatre. She is a trained singer and voice teacher, previously working (among other colleges) at Kristiania University College, Bachelor in Musical Theatre and Bachelor in Acting. Von Germeten is an authorized Complete Vocal Technique teacher, and holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Management from the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Vienna.

Sidsel Karlsen is vice-principal for research and professor of Music Education at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Karlsen has published widely in international research journals, anthologies, and handbooks. Her research interests include, among other things, the sociology of music education, various aspects of musical gentrification, and cultural diversity in music education. She is co-editor of the recent books Musical Gentrification: Popular Music, Distinction and Social Mobility (Routledge) as well as The Politics of Diversity in Music Education (Springer).

References

Andersson

Ulvaeus

(1999) Mamma Mia! (Original Cast Recording). Polydor Ltd.

Armstrong

(2018) Time to face the music: Musical colonization and appropriation in Disney’s Moana. Social Sciences 7(7): 1–9.

Bareilles

(2016) Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recordings). 90 Live, Inc. and Waitress, LLC under exclusive license to DMI Soundtracks, LLC.

Bauman

(1988) Sociology and postmodernity. The Sociological Review 36(4): 790–813.

Bennet

Emmerson

Frown

(1999) Accounting for Taste: Australian Everyday Cultures in the Life of Australians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bennett

Savage

Silva

, et al. (2009) Culture, Class, Distinction. London: Routledge.

Bernstein

(2018) Candide (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Sony Music Entertainment.

Block

(2002) The melody (and the words) linger on: American musical comedies of the 1920s and 1930s. In: Laird

Everett

(eds) The Cambridge Companion to the Musical. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 77–97.

Block

(2009) Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from ‘Show Boat’ to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber. New York: Oxford University Press.

10.

Bourdieu

(1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

11.

Bourdieu

(1996) The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

12.

Brackett

(2016) Categorizing Sound: Genre and Twentieth-Century Popular Music. Berkeley: University of California Press.

13.

Brantley

(2011) Reincarnation all over again. The New York Times, 12 December, 2011. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/theater/reviews/on-a-clear-day-you-can-see-forever-at-st-james-review.html (accessed 6 May 2022).

14.

Brantley

(2014) A songwriter who found her voice. The New York Times, 27 October, 2014. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/theater/beautiful-the-carole-king-musical-at-sondheim-theater.html (accessed 6 May 2022).

15.

Brantley

(2018) Review: A ‘Carousel’ that spins on a romantically charged axis. The New York Times, 12 April, 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/theater/carousel-review-broadway.html (accessed 6 May 2022).

16.

Brisson

(2019) Back to the original omnivore: On the artefactual nature of Peterson’s thesis of omnivorousness. Poetics 76: 114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.03.004.

17.

Bryan

(1992) Ethel Merman: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press.

18.

Clum

(2018) Acting. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 221–240.

19.

Cutts

Widdop

(2017) Reimagining omnivorousness in the context of place. Journal of Consumer Culture 17(3): 480–503.

20.

Decker

(2018) Race, ethnicity, performance. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Identities and Audiences in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–31.

21.

Dvoskin

(2018) Audiences and critics. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Identities and Audiences in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 125–146.

22.

Edgerton

(2014) The extra-normal voice: EVT in singing. In: Harrison

O’Bryan

(eds) Teaching Singing in the 21st Century. London: Springer, 109–132.

23.

Edwin

(2007) Popular song and music theater: Belt is legit. Journal of Singing—The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing 64(2): 213–215.

24.

Eidsheim

(2019) The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music. Refiguring American Music. London: Duke University Press.

25.

Fisher

Kayes

Popeil

(2019) Pedagogy of different sung genres. In: Welch

Howard

Nix

(eds) The Oxford Handbook of Singing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 707–727.

26.

Gershwin

(2009) Porgy and Bess (Original Broadway Cast). Stage Door Records.

27.

Green

Freeman

Edwards

, et al. (2014) Trends in musical theatre voice: An Analysis of audition requirements for singers. Journal of Voice 28(3): 324–327.

28.

Greschner

(2019). Cross-training in the voice studio: A balancing act. Journal of Singing 75(4): 503–504.

29.

Grossman

(2018) Musical theatre directors. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 173–195.

30.

Guettel

(2005) The Light in the Piazza (Album). Nonesuch Records, Inc.

31.

Hall

(2006) Music theater vocal pedagogy and styles: An introductory teaching guide for experienced classical singing teachers. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York.

32.

Hazir

Warde

(2016) The cultural omnivore thesis: Methodological aspects of the debate. In: Hanquinet

Savage

(eds) Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture. Abingdon: Routledge, 77–89.

33.

Hennion

(2015) The Passion for Music: A Sociology of Mediation (trans. Collier

Rigaud

). Farnham: Ashgate.

34.

Hoch

(2018) So You Want to Sing CCM (contemporary commercial music): A Guide for Performers. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

35.

Hodge

(2020) 21st-century Broadway musicals and the ‘Best Musical’ Tony Award: trends and impact. Arts 9(2): 58.

36.

Isherwood

(2016) Review: Jessie Mueller serves a slice of life (with pie) in Sara Bareilles’s ‘Waitress’. The New York Times, April 24, 2016. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/theater/review-jessie-mueller-serves-a-slice-of-life-with-pie-in-sara-bareilless-waitress.html (accessed 6 May 2022).

37.

John

(1997) The Lion King (Original Cast Recording). Walt Disney Records.

38.

Johnson

(2019) Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

39.

Johnson

Asare

Coddington

, et al. (2019) Divided by a common language: Musical theatre and popular music studies. Journal of Popular Music Studies 31(4): 32–50.

40.

Kayes

(2015) How does genre shape the vocal behavior of female singers? Empirical studies of professional female singing in western lyric and contemporary commercial music genres. Doctoral dissertation, University of London, UK.

41.

Kern

(1966) Show Boat (1946 Broadway Revival Cast Recording). Sony Music Entertainment.

42.

Khouri

(2019) Patsy and Loretta. Sony Pictures Television Inc.

43.

King

(2014) Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Beautiful on Broadway. LLC, Under Exclusive License to Ghostlight Records.

44.

Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(2018a) Histories of the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical (Vol. 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

45.

Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(2018b) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American musical (Vol. 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

46.

Krieger

(2006) Dreamgirls (Original Broadway Cast Album). Universal Music Enterprises, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

47.

Laird

(2018) Musical styles and song conventions. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Histories of the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 51–70.

48.

LeBorgne

(2007) Interview with J Melton. In: Melton

, Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors. New York: Allworth Press, 30–51.

49.

Lloyd Webber

(2021) Jesus Christ Superstar (50th Anniversary/Deluxe Album). A Decca Broadway release. UMG Recordings, Inc.

50.

LoVetri

(2007) Interview with J Melton. In: Melton

, Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors. New York: Allworth Press, 66–91.

51.

LoVetri

Saunders-Barton

Weekly

(2014) A brief overview of approaches to teaching the music theatre song. In: Harrison

O’Bryan

(eds) Teaching Singing in the 21st Century. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 53–66.

52.

Luo

(2019) The omnivore turn in cultural production: Case study of China’s Rainbow Chamber Singers. International Journal of Cultural Studies 23(1): 81–101. DOI: doi:10.1177/1367877919875972.

53.

Lutvak

Freedman

(2014) A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Album). Eight To Go LLC. Under Exclusive License to Ghostlight Records.

54.

MacDermot

(2003) Hair (Original Broadway/Off Broadway Cast Recordings). BMG Music.

55.

Macpherson

(2019) Sing: Musical theater voices from Superstar to Hamilton. In: Sternfeld

Wollman

(eds) The Routledge Companion to the American Stage Musical: 1970 and Beyond. New York: Routledge, 69–77.

56.

Melton

(2007) Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors. New York: Allworth Press.

57.

Miranda

(2015) Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Hamilton Uptown, LLC Under Exclusive license to Atlantic Recording Corporation for the United States and WEA International Inc. For the World Outside of the United States.

58.

Miranda

Mancina

Opetaia

(2016) Moana (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack/Deluxe Edition). Disney Enterprises, Inc.

59.

Mitchell

(2019) Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Hadestown Broadway Under Exclusive License to Sing It Again.

60.

Moore

(2017) The utilization of non-classical approaches to teaching musical theatre repertoire to the undergraduate soprano voice major. Voice and Speech Review 11(2): 216–225.

61.

Morris

(2018) Narratives and values. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Histories of the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–27.

62.

Morris

Knapp

(2018) Singing. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 241–264.

63.

Ollivier

(2008) Modes of openness to cultural diversity: Humanist, populist, practical, and indifferent. Poetics 36(2): 120–147.

64.

Pareles

(2010) Broadway rocks. Get over it. The New York Times, 12 May 2010. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/theater/theaterspecial/16rock.html (accessed 6 May 2022).

65.

Parton

(2009) 9 To 5 – The Musical (Original Cast Recording). Dolly Records.

66.

Pasek

Paul

(2017) Dear Evan Hanson (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Autumn Smile Broadway Limited Liability Company under Exclusive License to Atlantic Recording Corporation for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the World Outside of the United States.

67.

Peterson

(1992) Understanding audience segmentation: From elite and mass to omnivore and univore. Poetics 21(4): 243–258.

68.

Peterson

(1997) Popular music is plural. Popular Music and Society 21(1): 53–58.

69.

Peterson

(2005) Problems in comparative research: The example of omnivorousness. Poetics 33(5–6): 257–282.

70.

Peterson

Kern

(1996) Changing highbrow taste: From snob to omnivore. American Sociological Review 61(5): 900–907.

71.

Peterson

Simkus

(1992) How musical tastes mark occupational status groups. In: Lamont

Fournier

(eds) Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 152–186.

72.

Regev

(2013) Pop-Rock Music: Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism in Late Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.

73.

Robette

Olivier

(2014) An eclectic eclecticism: Methodological and theoretical issues about the quantification of cultural omnivorism. Poetics 47: 23–40.

74.

Rodgers

(2009) Carousel (Original Broadway Cast). Stage Door Records.

75.

Rodgers

(2018). Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel (2018 Broadway Cast Recording). Rodgers & Hammerstein Holdings, LLC and Ferenc Limited Liability Company. Under exclusive license to Craft Recordings, a division of Concord Music Group, Inc.

76.

Rossman

Peterson

(2015) The instability of omnivorous cultural taste over time. Poetics 52: 139–153.

77.

Salzman

Desi

(2008) The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body. New York: Oxford University Press.

78.

Santoro

(2008) Producing cultural sociology: An interview with Richard A. Peterson. Cultural Sociology, 2(1): 33–55.

79.

Saunders-Barton

(2007) Interview with J Melton. In: Melton

, Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors. New York: Allworth Press, 92–106.

80.

Savage

Gayo

(2011) Unravelling the omnivore: A field analysis of contemporary musical taste in the United Kingdom. Poetics 39(5): 337–357.

81.

Savran

(2004) Toward a historiography of the popular. Theatre Survey 45(2): 211–217.

82.

Savran

(2018) Class and culture. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Identities and Audiences in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 81–100.

83.

Schönberg

(1987) Les Misérables (Original Broadway Cast Recording). UMG Recordings, Inc.

84.

Shishko

(2019) Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton, A new era of Broadway musicals. Thesis 8(1): 69–83.

85.

Silver

Lee

Childress

(2016) Genre complexes in popular music. PLoS One 11(5): e0155471-e0155494.

86.

Sondheim

(1979) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Original Broadway Cast Recording). BMG Music.

87.

Sullivan

88.

Symonds

(2014) The song’s the thing: Capturing the ‘sung’ to make it ‘song’. In: Symonds

Mille

(eds) Gestures of Music Theatre: The Performativity of Song and Dance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 9–21.

89.

Symonds

(2018) Orchestration and arrangement. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 149–171.

90.

Taylor

(2012) Musical Theatre, Realism and Entertainment. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

91.

Taylor

Symonds

(2014) Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and Practice. London: Red Globe Press.

92.

Thomas

(2019) When Disney came to Broadway: Assessing the impact of corporatization in an art world. Poetics 77: 101384.

93.

Van Eijck

(2001) Social differentiation in musical taste patterns. Social Forces 79(3): 1163–1185.

94.

Varriale

(2015) Beyond distinction: Theorising cultural evaluation as a social encounter. Cultural Sociology 10(2): 160–177.

95.

Vlegels

Lievens

(2017) Music classification, genres, and taste patterns: A ground-up network analysis on the clustering of artist preferences. Poetics 60: 76–89.

96.

von Germeten

(2021) Exploring original cast recordings as ‘vocal scripts’: Navigating ‘vocal omnivorousness’ and learning ‘the sungs’ of musical theatre. Voice and Speech Review. Published online 14 December. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23268263.2021.2010898.

97.

Warde

Wright

Gayo-Cal

(2007) Understanding cultural omnivorousness: Or, the myth of the cultural omnivore. Cultural Sociology 1(2): 143–164.

98.

Wilson

(2007) Interview with J Melton. In: Melton

, Singing in Musical: The Training of Singers and Actors. New York: Allworth Press, 224–242.

99.

Wolf

(2018) Gender and sexuality. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Identities and Audiences in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33–58.

100.

Wolff

(2018) Theater. In: Knapp

Morris

Wolf

(eds) Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–25.

101.

Wollman

(2017) A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.

102.

Wright

(2011) Making tastes for everything: Omnivorousness and cultural abundance. Journal for Cultural Research 15(4): 355–371.

103.

Yazbek

(2017) The Band’s Visit (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Sh-K-Boom Records, LLC.

Voicing Omnivorousness,Assembling the Omnivorous Voice: The American Musical Explored

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Cultural Omnivorousness: The New (Musical) Sign of Cultural Capital

The Contemporary American Musical: Patterns of Omnivorous Consumption

Omnivorousness as the Trick of Production: The Art of Musical Citing

A Brief History of Voice in the American Musical

Performing the Omnivorous Voice

Concluding Remarks and Implications for Future Research

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biographies

References