Broadway: The American Musical (BBC4)

IN those old MGM movies a youthful Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney would enthusiastically declare: "let's put the show on right here". Miraculously, they'd stage a full-blown musical show at the drop of a hat in a barn.

The reality is very different as the big corporations have become the new impresarios and budgets for Broadway shows are staggering. Presenter Julie Andrews told how the 2003 production of the musical Wicked cost $14m. Simply to recoup the investment would take 18 months if more than 1,300 tickets were sold for each and every performance.

No wonder Broadway tickets cost even more than in London's West End, where the £65 top price for Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques musical caused gasps of horror.

British producer Cameron Mackintosh has proved you can make money out of big musicals like Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom Of The Opera and Miss Saigon. His four top shows have grossed $86bn worldwide - more than Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Titanic combined.

Composer Stephen Sondheim is one of the few for whom producers are willing to put art before profit. His work isn't always commercial, but producers are queuing up to stage it and be associated with a genius.

This sixth and final part of Broadway: The American Musical brought the story up to date with much flinging around of opinions and statistics, plus generous excerpts from shows.

Nowadays the accent is on the 'business' in show business. There have been big changes in the past 25 years. The trend is turning movies into stage musicals - everything from Disney cartoons to indie comedy Hairspray. With production costs upwards of $10m, producers hedge their bets and put on something the public will recognise.

You'd have more chance of winning the Lottery than getting your money back from a Broadway musical. Old-style producers like David Merrick are gone. So is Gower Champion, who directed the revival of 42nd Street - although Merrick waited until the opening night curtain call before announcing the director had died hours before curtain up.

Tragedy and triumph go hand in hand. Hollywood lost a generation of performers and directors to AIDS. Ironically, Jonathan Larson died the night before the first preview of his musical Rent, which dealt with grieving for friends lost to AIDS. He died, age 35, of an undiagnosed heart problem.

It seems appropriate that the first must-see musical comedy for ages was Mel Brooks' The Producers - a stage musical based on a film about a producer putting on a stage musical about Hitler that he wants to fail for financial reasons and is horrified when it's a big hit.

No less than 14 producers were involved in bringing it to Broadway. I hope none emulated the show's leading character, Max Bialystock, who cons old ladies out of their savings to finance the show.

Max admitted he been a "lying, double-crossing, back-stabbing, despicable crook" - adding: "I had no choice, I was a producer".

Northern Sinfonia, The Sage Gateshead

THE vivid sound world of Messiaen, a composer who used to see his music in colours, was brought to life in a kaleidoscope of hues by the Northern Sinfonia, performing at the Sage, Gateshead.

Messiaen drew his inspiration for Des Canyons Aux Etoiles (From The Canyons To The Stars) from the spectacular landscape of Utah's canyons and desert. Conductor Thierry Fischer sketched the opening with a spaced deliberation; the rising horns and wind machine the evoking the desolation of desert, while a haunting bird-like melody rose from the strings.

From there on it was a dazzling exploration, with Fischer steering the ensemble through the intricate work, picking out every layer with pin-sharp resolution.

The work calls on an impressive array of percussion instruments including gongs, bells, rototoms, thunder plate and a geophone (devised by Messiaen, this comprises a large flat drum filled with lead shot which is slowly turned to make a sound like sifting sand). It also includes virtuoso parts for a xylorimba and glockenspiel.

The rich palette of rich oranges and reds was welded into a cogent whole. Peter Francomb on the horn stretched the capacity of his instrument to the limit, ending his solo with a haunting, ululating call, evoking the spirit of native Americans. Pivotal to the performance was pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, whose keen and sharply articulated attacks recalled a medley of songbirds. He reeled off an orchard oriole, white-browed robin and gave a stunning rendition of a mockingbird. The piece drew to a close with shimmering string work, redolent of a midday haze.

The hall, like the desert, was sparsely populated, but the audience made up for its size with a shower of applause.

Gavin Engelbrecht

Published: ??/??/2004