My wife thought it was going to be a film, but instead disney+ presents a streaming collage of a number of performances from the Hamilton original cast captured in mid-2016, when the excitement and hype over Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical was at its Big Apple peak. It’s a nice gesture from the corporation in pandemic times.
A few of my friends have seen this opera (it’s virtually all sung-through, so not technically a true musical) in New York with some or all the first cast. Many others have seen traveling companies perform around the country. These friends say the original actors give a peak performance. I have no measure of comparison, but the presentation on streaming tv is luminous. Cameras work and give perspectives an audience would never get. The video direction is superb. The choreography surpasses this.
What impresses me most is how the composer has gathered titanic talent–not only onstage, but valuable collaborators who magnify his art to a level I’ve never seen surpassed on the musical stage.
Would you say that’s an endorsement?
