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Alan Menken on cuts, adds and intimidating Emma Watson

By Associated Press
Published: March 19, 2017, 6:04am

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Composer Alan Menken really wanted to include the song “If I Can’t Love Her” in the new live-action “Beauty and the Beast.”

The soaring ballad, sung by the Beast, was written for the Broadway musical as the closing number before intermission.

“It’s a monumentally good song. But it is unique to the structure of a stage musical,” Menken said recently. “I made a few attempts to go, ‘Well could it just be right there?’ and (lyricist) Tim Rice said to me, ‘It would be like writing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Brazil.”‘

So, on the cutting room floor it went, along with some of the other Broadway additions, like “Home” (although some of the music from that song does make it into the new film). Menken, who won Oscars for his “Beauty” score and also the song “Beauty and the Beast,” knew that this ship was in the hands of director Bill Condon.

“I have to balance being the keeper of the flame of the original and the Broadway show and being an enthusiastic and supportive team member in bringing it into new territory,” Menken said. “With ‘Beauty’ I was blessed to have Bill Condon. … He’s smart, he loves musical theater and he loves ‘Beauty and the Beast.'”

“Beauty” fans need not despair about too many changes, either — all of the songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman for the 1991 animated film are in this new version, with a few tweaks and some newly unearthed Ashman lyrics, as well. (Ashman died of complications from AIDS before the animated film was released.)

The cuts also made room for three new songs from Menken and Rice, including a more fitting ballad for the Beast, “Evermore,” sung after he lets Belle go.

“We had these up numbers and the one ballad, so we felt we could afford gentler or more anthem-ic moments,” Menken said of the new songs. There’s one for the household objects, “Days in the Sun,” and one for Belle’s father, Maurice (Kevin Kline), “How Does a Moment Last Forever.”

While much of the supporting cast had some Broadway experience, Menken acknowledges that leads Emma Watson and Dan Stevens were a bit green in that area.

“They both were a little deer-in-headlights,” Menken said.

Watson, in particular needed space to find her own voice as Belle.

“I’m not used to being an intimidating presence, but I think the composer was a little scary to her so we made sure she had her own vocal coach,” Menken said. “I stepped back, which was fine. The songs speak for themselves. I could always give my notes from a distance.”

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