There was a time in the history of modern music not too long ago that was called the Age of the Divas. It was the era when the likes of Céline Dion and Mariah Carey were fêted and lauded for their ability to turn any song into an exercise in vocal acrobatics. They could reach the highest notes and hold them endlessly all the while smiling and exuding a sense of grace and calm that made what they did seem easy. In reality, none of what they did was easy. The reason they were able to do what they did was the result of hard work, lots of training and true talent. The fact is that the great ones make it all look easy, and those divas, along with the others grouped in with them, are certainly all great singers. For those who only know music of the last decade or two, let me take you on a little history lesson. There was a time during my lifetime when it was male singers who were fêted and lauded for their singing skills. We called this the Age of the Crooners. That was a time in music history in the 1950s and 60s when deep-throated baritones were the stars of the music world. They were the ones who could bring an audience to their collective feet by belting out those notes and holding them forever and a day. The stars of that era were the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Robert Goulet, Paul Anka, Tony Bennett and even Elvis. Today we are going to focus on another male singer who had the vocal chops to merit being mentioned in the same post as the legends listed above. That man is Broadway star Richard Kiley. More about him in a bit. But as you know, every great musical performance is a partnership. On one hand we have a talented singer all warmed up and ready to go. In order for that star to shine, the singer needs a song that complements their talent. Today we have such a song. “The Impossible Dream” is the show stopping song from the award-winning musical The Man of La Mancha. But more than that, it is a song that has transcended that musical to become a standard by which the best male singers are judged. “The Impossible Dream” is an emotional song about the burning desire that comes with a heartfelt quest. It has also become a bit of an anthem for men, in general. I completely understand that in this day and age, anyone of any gender can rise up and achieve lofty goals. However, for better or worse, in our society there is still value accorded to men who stand up, roll up their sleeves while looking adversity in the eye, all the while saying, “I guess it’s up to me” and then going out and slaying those dragons. It is for this reason that “The Impossible Dream” tends to be a chest-thumping song sung by the best male singers. This song made a star out of Richard Kiley and a Tony winner out of the musical in which it is sung. Let’s polish our armour and mount our trusty steeds! It is quest time for the bravest of the brave! Whooooooo’s with me!? The time to begin is now.
Two things first: The Man of La Mancha is a musical that was inspired by the famous epic novel Don Quixote by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote is considered to be one of the great early works in the Western literary canon. The musical The Man of La Mancha is not a literal retelling of the Don Quixote tale. Instead, it is a dramatization that uses the novel and the making of it as vehicles to tell an entirely new story. It is the same as if a detective story was based upon a murder that happened while a book club was meeting to discuss and debate the merits of Murder on the Orient Express. So, The Man of La Mancha is a musical that uses the novel Don Quixote to spin an entirely new tale. The second thing to know is that “La Mancha” is a real place. It is a region in Spain that has long sought autonomy to govern its own affairs. As such, the La Mancha region has found itself at odds with the Spanish government at various times during the past few centuries. It is against this backdrop that the musical is set. In fact, The Man of La Mancha not only uses one of Spain’s finest literary achievements as a plot device, but it also reaches into history and places the story at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
Without going through the entire plot of the musical, at its core is the story of the writer Cervantes, who has been brought to stand trial before the Spanish Inquisition for having written Don Quixote. While awaiting trial, Cervantes defends himself before a jury of his fellow inmates by creating a new play. In this play-within-a-play scenario, most of the action concerns the characters that Cervantes has created during this defense. In his newly-minted play, Cervantes tells the story of a man also named Don Quixote who mistakes himself for a knight. Whether or not the man is suffering from a form of mental illness that is causing him to believe he is a nobleman on a quest or whether the man is suffering from delusions of grandeur and represents the spirit of La Mancha in its quest for autonomy, the result is a tale, at times comedic and at times tragic and pathetic. It is a quest that sees the man fight the good fight against all odds and awareness. Of course there is a love interest that arises during the course of this quest. It is during a conversation between the man and the woman he believes is the noble lady of his dreams (but who, in fact, is really a prostitute at a brothel) in which she demands to know what fuels this man’s seemingly crazy quest, that the song “The Impossible Dream” is sung. By this stage of the musical, the audience is well aware that this man is not who he thinks he is. It is apparent that he is an ordinary man who is out of his league when it comes to doing extraordinary things. The audience, as well as the other characters in the play, seem to sense that he is going to get hurt and they instinctively become protective of him in their hearts, even as he sings defiantly of achieving the impossible dream. The singing of this song captures the politics of the moment in Spain (with regard to La Mancha’s quest for freedom from Spain). It touches on our ability as citizens to stand up to all powerful entities such as the Spanish Inquisitors, and, in general, it speaks to the ability that each of us possesses to realistically control our own fate in this life of ours. Just like that person who holds a lottery ticket in their hand, even though the odds might be highly stacked against them, as long as they have a ticket, then they have hope. In this musical, as long as there is a dream, then anything is possible, including the seemingly impossible.
The Broadway musical The Man of La Mancha debuted in 1965. It was scored by Mitch Leigh (music) and Joe Darion (lyrics). Richard Kiley was already a Tony award-winning actor (for the musical Kismet) when he agreed to star as Don Quixote in this play-within-a-play. He won the Best Actor award for this role and became the first male singer to sing “The Impossible Dream” on stage and then to subsequently record and release the song to the public. Once Kiley’s version hit the public airwaves, the song became a hit whose influence ranged way beyond the original confines of the musical. There was a time during the 1960s and into the 70s when almost every male singer of note used “The Impossible Dream” during their live concert performances. It became almost a rite of passage for male singers to record/perform this song along with soaring orchestration, making “The Impossible Dream” every bit the diva-esque type of song that the Céline Dions of the world would emulate decades later. There is something to be said about listening to a talented, professionally trained singer belting out something that was written to be sung with gusto. As for Richard Kiley, The Man of La Mancha was his last Tony award win, but he went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career on Broadway before transitioning over to television, where he became a very recognizable character actor on numerous hit shows of the day. But for me, the most interesting facet of his career was that he was the narrator for National Geographic. If you ever watched a National Geographic video, then you listened to the baritone stylings of Mr. Richard Kiley. I will never watch an antelope at the watering hole being stalked by a lion the same way again.
That life is tough is a given. It is to our credit that we each tend to find a way forward. While we share many obstacles and challenges in common with our fellow humans, we also possess some that are uniquely our own. How we manage to face adversity in life is one of the keys to the nature of the success and happiness we manage to achieve. No one says that rising against the tide is easy, but it becomes easier when there is hope. Whether that hope is fuelled by delusions borne of mental illness or by lottery-esque odds or by well-reasoned strategies, as long as there is hope we will continue to persevere. There has to be hope, for it is hope that fuels all manner of dreams, even those that others deem impossible, but you believe in your heart to be real.
The link to the official website for the musical The Man of La Mancha can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “The Impossible Dream” as sung by Richard Kiley can be found here. The lyrics version is here.
The link to one of many videos from the National Geographic video collection showing a scene narrated by Richard Kiley can be found here.
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