GRE阅读求助

戲劇家Lloyd Webber

23. 戲劇家Lloyd Webber
A standard criticism of Lloyd Webber, especially from drama critics, is that his music is derivative—a gloss on his betters when it is not an outright率直的, 总共的, 完全的theft偷窃, 盗窃. Since most drama critics are, to put it charitably慷慨地; 慈善地, nonmusical, this is an odd古怪的 criticism, and one that smacks  捆, 打; 咂; 啪的一声甩of received opinion: "Puccini-esque" is a term one encounters often in criticism of Lloyd Webber's music, but aside from "Growltiger's Last Stand," which parodies打油诗作者; 诙谐文作者 the first-act love duet  二重唱; 二重奏 from Madama Butterfly, there is precious宝贵的, little Puccini in Cats.
Indeed, Lloyd Webber has always been more highly regarded by music critics, who not only know the repertoire he is alleged声称的, 所谓的to be pilfering小偷, but also can place him correctly in a dramatic-operatic context. Far from being the love child of Puccini and Barry Manilow, as some would have it, Lloyd Webber is more correctly seen as a kind of latter-day Giacomo Meyerbeer, the king of the Paris Opera in the mid-19th century, whose name was synonymous同义字的 with spectacle壮观. But a little ignorance goes a long way, and with "Memory" the notion概念that Lloyd Webber is a secondhand pastiche模仿作品artist—if not an outright plagiarist—got its start.
This is partly Lloyd Webber's own fault. His melodies sometimes skirt perilously  充满危险地, 危机四伏地close to earlier classical and Broadway sources, and while the showbiz axiom that "good writers borrow, great writers steal" may well apply, it is also true that some of his tunes, both large and small, evoke唤起, 引起 earlier sources. As drama critic John Simon wrote after the première of Phantom: "It's not so much that Lloyd Webber lacks an ear for melody as that he has too much of a one for other people's melodies.... I predict that Gershwin and Rodgers, let alone Puccini and Ravel (another of his magnets), have nothing to fear from him." Other critics have been less subtle: "Webber's music isn't so painful to hear, if you don't mind its being so soiled from previous use," wrote Michael Feingold of the Village Voice.

没明白楼主的意思？是看不懂文章？