Master of the House

The tavern lurches to life with a raucous waltz, all accordion and tuba and a rhythm that seems to be slightly drunk. The production is deliberately excessive — the orchestration clatters and belches, undercutting every sentimental moment with a musical wink. This is comic theater at its most cynical and also its most alive, a number that understands corruption deeply enough to make it entertaining. The baritone voice required here must have range beyond pitch — it needs grease, charm, the ability to make an audience complicit in being deceived. The great performances land somewhere between a confidence artist and a stand-up comedian, milking each verse for new depths of cheerful villainy. The lyric is a guided tour of exploitation delivered as a celebration, a man bragging about his grift while the guests he is fleecing sing along. What the song understands about human nature — that we often prefer the con artist who entertains us over the saint who demands something of us — gives it a satirical edge that cuts well beyond the 19th-century setting. It belongs to the tradition of the Brechtian showstopper, the number that makes you laugh and then makes you uncomfortable about the laughing. You put this on when you need energy, when the preceding heaviness has become too much, when you want music that grins at the darkness instead of weeping at it.