Kurt Gänzl
Encyclopedia
Kurt Gänzl is an award-winning writer, musicologist, casting director and singer best known for his books about musical theatre
.
After a long acting and singing career and a career as a casting director of West End
shows, Gänzl has become one of the world's most important chroniclers of the history of musical theatre. According to Canal Académie, "Kurt Gänzl is an institution. No one interested in musicals and operetta can ignore that. He is the world reference – with some few others, like Gerald Bordman, Ken Bloom, or Andrew Lamb
– for that subject".
in New Zealand, receiving a masters degree in 1967 while performing as a radio and concert vocalist.
soloist. After the company closed, he moved to London and studied for a year at the London Opera Centre
. For twenty years, he worked as a performer, including a long run in London's hit show, The Black and White Minstrels. His last show was Harold Fielding's Hans Andersen at the London Palladium
. He then worked as a talent agent and as a casting director for over a dozen musicals and plays in London's West End theatre
s and for musical and operatic productions in Europe and America.
While still working as a casting director, Gänzl began writing theatre reference works. In 1986 he published his two-volume history, The British Musical Theatre (Macmillan Press, 1986), which won the Roger Machell Prize for the year's best performing-arts book and the British Library Association’s McColvin Medal for the outstanding reference work (any subject) of its season. It also won the Library Association McClovin Medal. This was followed by Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre (1988 with Andrew Lamb
), Encyclopaedia of World's Musicals (1994), and The Musical: A Concise History (1997). Gänzl has published over a dozen important books on musical theatre. He has also contributed many biographical entries to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Gänzl's seminal reference work, The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, was published in 1994 and greatly expanded in a second edition in 2001. It was a Dartmouth Medal honoree in 1995 and was awarded "Outstanding Reference Source" in 1997 by the American Library Association. Theatre historian John Kenrick
describes it as follows: "Only serious research libraries carry this set listing thousands of shows and individuals. This expanded update of the 1995 original edition is the best source to date on European musicals, with solid coverage of Broadway too." Another critic calls it "the most exhaustive study anyone has yet made of musicals, and it is difficult to imagine it being done in a better or more thorough way."
The Times
wrote, "So, with The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre, Kurt Ganzl... has transcended all rivals. His work embraces not only Broadway and Shaftesbury Avenue, but Vienna and Budapest, Paris and Rome, Sydney and Toronto. He even apologises for including only three New Zealand entries. If there is a musical production of any kind that he does not know about, then it is odds-on that nobody else does either." Gänzl has said, "My goals are to make the musical theater a respectable academic subject and to put the musical theater into its international context. I want to bring the so-called 'musical' and 'operetta' back together as part of the same art form and to dispel some of the early myths and quasi-historical errors and distortions that have become accepted as part of musical theater history."
At the end of the 1980s, Gänzl moved to St. Paul de Vence in the south of France to concentrate on writing full time. He later moved to New Zealand, where he owns several harness racing
horses and is preparing a multi-volume encyclopedia of Victorian vocalists. His partner of 30 years, the theatrical agent Ian Bevan, died in 2006 aged 87.
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
.
After a long acting and singing career and a career as a casting director of West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
shows, Gänzl has become one of the world's most important chroniclers of the history of musical theatre. According to Canal Académie, "Kurt Gänzl is an institution. No one interested in musicals and operetta can ignore that. He is the world reference – with some few others, like Gerald Bordman, Ken Bloom, or Andrew Lamb
Andrew Lamb (writer)
Andrew Martin Lamb is an English writer, musicologist and broadcaster, known for his expertise in light music and musical theatre.-Biography:Lamb was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England, on 23 September 1942, the son of Harry Lamb, a schoolmaster, and his wife Winifred, née Emmott...
– for that subject".
Biography
Gänzl was born Brian Roy Gallas in Wellington, New Zealand and is of Austrian descent, the son of Frederick, an educator, and Nancy Gallas, née Welsh. He studied law and classics at University of CanterburyUniversity of Canterbury
The University of Canterbury , New Zealand's second-oldest university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand...
in New Zealand, receiving a masters degree in 1967 while performing as a radio and concert vocalist.
Career
Early in his career, Gänzl wrote plays. His one-act plays Elektra and The Women of Troy were produced in New Zealand in 1966 and 1967 by Elmwood Players. The latter play won the British Drama League (now British Theatre Association/Drama Magazine) award in 1967. The next year, Ganzl joined the New Zealand Opera Company as a bassBass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
soloist. After the company closed, he moved to London and studied for a year at the London Opera Centre
London Opera Centre
The London Opera Centre, a school for the training of opera singers and other opera professionals, existed in England between 1963 and 1977. It was located in the former Troxy Cinema on Commercial Road in London's East End Borough of Stepney . The Troxy, with 3,520 seats, opened in 1933 and was...
. For twenty years, he worked as a performer, including a long run in London's hit show, The Black and White Minstrels. His last show was Harold Fielding's Hans Andersen at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
. He then worked as a talent agent and as a casting director for over a dozen musicals and plays in London's West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
s and for musical and operatic productions in Europe and America.
While still working as a casting director, Gänzl began writing theatre reference works. In 1986 he published his two-volume history, The British Musical Theatre (Macmillan Press, 1986), which won the Roger Machell Prize for the year's best performing-arts book and the British Library Association’s McColvin Medal for the outstanding reference work (any subject) of its season. It also won the Library Association McClovin Medal. This was followed by Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre (1988 with Andrew Lamb
Andrew Lamb (writer)
Andrew Martin Lamb is an English writer, musicologist and broadcaster, known for his expertise in light music and musical theatre.-Biography:Lamb was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England, on 23 September 1942, the son of Harry Lamb, a schoolmaster, and his wife Winifred, née Emmott...
), Encyclopaedia of World's Musicals (1994), and The Musical: A Concise History (1997). Gänzl has published over a dozen important books on musical theatre. He has also contributed many biographical entries to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Gänzl's seminal reference work, The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, was published in 1994 and greatly expanded in a second edition in 2001. It was a Dartmouth Medal honoree in 1995 and was awarded "Outstanding Reference Source" in 1997 by the American Library Association. Theatre historian John Kenrick
John Kenrick (theatre writer)
John Kenrick is an American author, teacher and theatre and film historian. Kenrick is an adjunct teacher of musical theatre history at New York University, Brind School – University of the Arts and The New School, and lectures frequently on the subject elsewhere...
describes it as follows: "Only serious research libraries carry this set listing thousands of shows and individuals. This expanded update of the 1995 original edition is the best source to date on European musicals, with solid coverage of Broadway too." Another critic calls it "the most exhaustive study anyone has yet made of musicals, and it is difficult to imagine it being done in a better or more thorough way."
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote, "So, with The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre, Kurt Ganzl... has transcended all rivals. His work embraces not only Broadway and Shaftesbury Avenue, but Vienna and Budapest, Paris and Rome, Sydney and Toronto. He even apologises for including only three New Zealand entries. If there is a musical production of any kind that he does not know about, then it is odds-on that nobody else does either." Gänzl has said, "My goals are to make the musical theater a respectable academic subject and to put the musical theater into its international context. I want to bring the so-called 'musical' and 'operetta' back together as part of the same art form and to dispel some of the early myths and quasi-historical errors and distortions that have become accepted as part of musical theater history."
At the end of the 1980s, Gänzl moved to St. Paul de Vence in the south of France to concentrate on writing full time. He later moved to New Zealand, where he owns several harness racing
Harness racing
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait . They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, although racing under saddle is also conducted in Europe.-Breeds:...
horses and is preparing a multi-volume encyclopedia of Victorian vocalists. His partner of 30 years, the theatrical agent Ian Bevan, died in 2006 aged 87.
Books
- 1986: The British Musical Theatre (2 vols.; Macmillan Press) ISBN 0-19-520509-1
- 1988: Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre (with Andrew LambAndrew Lamb (writer)Andrew Martin Lamb is an English writer, musicologist and broadcaster, known for his expertise in light music and musical theatre.-Biography:Lamb was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England, on 23 September 1942, the son of Harry Lamb, a schoolmaster, and his wife Winifred, née Emmott...
; Bodley Head/Schirmer) ISBN 0-02-871941-7 - 1989: The Blackwell Guide to the Musical Theatre on Record. Blackwell ISBN 0-631-16517-7
- 1990: The Complete "Aspects of Love" (Aurum Press) ISBN 0-670-83192-1
- 1994: The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (Blackwell/Schirmer; 2 vols, expanded in 2001 to 3 vols.) ISBN 0-02-864970-2
- 1995: Musicals: the Illustrated Story (Carlton; USA: Song and Dance) ISBN 0-7475-2381-9
- Musicals (2004 (3rd ed.; orig. 1995), Carlton Books) ISBN 1-84442-666-1
- 1995: Song and Dance: The Complete Story of Stage Musicals (Smithmark Publishers) ISBN 0-8317-1890-0
- 1995: Gänzl's Book of the Broadway Musical (Schirmer; Macmillan) ISBN 0-02-870832-6
- 1997: The Musical: a Concise History (Boston: Northeastern University Press ISBN 1-55553-311-6
- 2002: Biography: Lydia ThompsonLydia ThompsonLydia Thompson, born Eliza Hodges Thompson , was an English dancer, actress and theatrical producer....
, Queen of Burlesque (NY & London: Routledge) ISBN 0-415-93766-5 - 2002: From the Gold Fields to Broadway (Routledge) ISBN 0-415-93767-2 (Biography of William B. GillWilliam B. GillWilliam Bain Gill was an American actor and playwright, most famous for authoring Broadway's first hit musical, AdonisBorn in Newfoundland in 1842, Gill spent the early part of his career as an actor in Australia and India. Gill ultimately moved to the United States with his wife and children...
) - 2007: Emily SoldeneEmily SoldeneEmily Soldene was an English singer, actress, director, theatre manager, novelist and journalist of the late Victorian era and the Edwardian period...
: In Search of a Singer ( Steele Roberts) ISBN 1-877338-72-4