The Bible and Music

Today in class we talked about the rock musical, Jesus Christ, Superstar.  I had heard of it before, but I had never heard any of the songs or seen it. As it turns out, the musical is told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot. This was shocking to me because Judas is known as a betrayer of Jesus. The only media reference I had experience with had been when Judas was in the lowest circle of Dante’s inferno, as in, he was a really bad guy. So, having the story be seen from the perspective of Judas is an interesting change of pace. Another choice that was made with this musical is having the vocal range of both the characters of Judas and Jesus be in the same range, the tenor range, which is generally used for the protagonist or hero of the story.