. . . the Overture to Z-a-m-p-a is one of the most famous in all of Music History. THE BANDMASTER brilliantly relocates the action of this box office dud from the pirate realm to a circus big top tent. The sibling rivalry plot is wittily represented by the two-headed canine violinist here. Alice, the marble statue playing the female lead in the original version of this story, now becomes a hapless tightrope artist who initially loses her teeth, and later her hair, in a series of hilarious mishaps. The opera's buccaneer title character finds himself transformed into Benjamin, "the world's greatest high diver," who--despite Andy's best efforts--STILL plunges to his doom in the Underworld, in keeping with the beta trial's finale.
Review of The Bandmaster
