Rocktopia – Broadway Theatre, New York

Kimberly Nichole and Tony Vincent in Rocktopia at the Broadway Theatre, New York. Picture: Matthew Murphy

Rocktopia continues at the Broadway Theatre, New York until 29 April 2018.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

If you’ve ever wondered what ‘Musetta’s Waltz’ from Puccini’s La Bohème might sound like when sung contrapuntal with the Beatles’ ‘Something’, then Rocktopia is the show for you.

Rocktopia has taken over the venerable Broadway Theatre – where Miss Saigon recently closed – for a six-week engagement. It is, of course, basically a concert, but with its Broadway trappings, it could be a final step in the evolution of the jukebox musical. Highlight a bunch of familiar themes from the world of classical music and mash them with pop/rock and rock standards. Do away totally with those bothersome librettos that try so conscientiously and often so awkwardly to weave the songs into a story.

Make sure that just about every number gets a tumultuous arrangement, with a compact 20-piece symphony orchestra well amplified, a rock band, an energetic chorus and featured singers who can invest a lot of emotional heft into their presentation as well as rock star fury. Put them all under one ostensibly tireless baton, which in this case is commandeered by “Maestro” Randall Craig Fleischer, one of the event’s two co-creators.

Finally, instead of place-setting scenic design, use rock concert lighting beaming into the audience and ever-changing projected visuals at the back of the stage, giving the numbers some semblance of context. And voila! You’ve got yourself a show stuffed with a collection of 11 o’clock numbers.

The host for the proceedings is Rob Evan, the other co-creator. A performer with Broadway credits that include the title roles in Jekyll & Hyde, Evan is an amiable presence shifting easily from a pop/rock style to a robust operatic tenor. He opens the programme, sharing the stage with Tony Vincent, a magnetic slim, slithering amalgam of rock star poses (he played Judas in the 2000 Broadway mounting of Jesus Christ Superstar). They cavort through The Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’ battling against the signature opening of Richard Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’.

Other performers include the soignée soprano Alyson Cambridge, impressively warbling such pieces as the aforementioned ‘Musetta’s Waltz’, while Evan sings ‘Something’. In the power pop realm is Chloe Lowery, whose highlight is a passionate rendering of Foreigner’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, while a sultry Kimberly Nichole scores in such numbers as Patti Smith’s ‘Because the Night’, set against a theme from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Romeo and Juliet Overture’.

Guest vocalist for the engagement’s first three weeks is Pat Monahan, lead singer of the San Francisco rock band Train. Among his spots is a persuasive ‘Drops of Jupiter’ by Train, done as an encore.

Also getting considerable spotlight time are the kinetic violinist Máiréad Nesbitt and the stalwart guitarist Tony Bruno, unflappable no matter how many times he gets leaned on by a vocalist.

All the company comes together for a rousing Act I closer with another Puccini fave, ‘Nessun Dorma’ from Turandot, pumped up with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, while the group joins together again for the finale, a smattering of Beethoven’s ‘Ninth Symphony’s Ode to Joy’ intermingled with Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.

But that’s not all. The final encore is a sampling of Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ introducing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, another full-company explosion.

With its revelling in the bombastic, both classic and rock, Rocktopia may well be a shortcut to tinnitus, but it’s also surprisingly inventive and at times exhilarating. Be tempted and be warned.

Ron Cohen