However, for some reason, over the past couple of decades, the overture has begun to fade away. I don’t know if directors wanted immediacy or producers worried about pacing. Maybe in an age of shrinking attention spans, the idea of sitting still through a three-minute orchestral introduction suddenly felt indulgent. But it feels like we lost something deeply necessary: anticipation.
An overture did more than preview a score. It tuned the audience’s ears and hearts, reminding them that the music was the soul of the story. You could tell so much about a show from its overture. Gypsy’s was brassy and relentless — a showbiz march toward ambition and breakdown. Oklahoma! felt open and pastoral, the sound of a young nation learning who it was. West Side Story exploded with chaos and passion. The overture wasn’t just a sound; it was storytelling. Without a word, it told us what kind of world we were entering — bold, romantic, dangerous, whimsical.
We live now in an era obsessed with speed. So it’s no surprise that many modern musicals now begin mid-beat — right into the opening number, or worse, straight into dialogue.
It’s not that today’s composers lack musical brilliance. Far from it. Hamilton, Hadestown, and Six are dazzling in their own right. But we’ve lost the art of the slow entrance. We’ve forgotten the theatrical power of saying to an audience, “Wait. Listen. Let the music take you there first.”
So yes — bring overtures back. Bring back the moment when the orchestra gets its own standing ovation before the first line. In a world obsessed with skipping to the good part, the overture is the good part. It’s the promise that what’s coming next will be worth the wait.