![]() ![]() ![]() Recorded in 1955, the Lehman Engel studio Oh, Kay! has in the title role Barbara Ruick, known mostly for two Rodgers and Hammerstein performances, Carrie in the Carousel film, and a stepsister in the 1965 TV Cinderella. In addition to the Nonesuch version, there's an off-Broadway revival cast recording of Oh, Kay!, plus a Smithsonian disc collecting period recordings by original star Gertrude Lawrence and others (David Merrick's 1990 Broadway revival with Brian Stokes Mitchell and Angela Teek was not preserved). Listening to Martin here, it's hard to care about authenticity: She's heaven whether belting Merman's signature "I Got Rhythm," lazing through a languid "Bidin' My Time," or delivering a ravishingly smooth "But Not For Me." She puts her special stamp on everything, and makes this Girl Crazy difficult to ignore. As a bonus track, there's an encore "But Not For Me," recorded by Martin and Engel two years earlier. In place of the original Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations are enjoyable '50s-style ones, mostly by Ted Royal. The star performs numbers introduced by both original leading ladies, Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman Louise Carlyle and Eddie Chappell take over on other tracks, all backed by a chorus. The 1951 Girl Crazy was the first full-length recording of the score, and features most of the songs, most of them sung by fresh-from South Pacific Mary Martin. But such authenticity was not sought after in the '50s, when Lehman Engel conducted for Columbia a series of Goddard Lieberson-produced studio LPs of major titles for that matter, LP length would not have allowed the kind of completeness we now expect. The bonus track is well chosen: "The Glamorous Life" from Columbia's soundtrack album.īoth George and Ira Gershwin scores included now have scrupulously restored, complete Nonesuch studio recordings. In addition to a new mix, the Night Music disc adds (in its correct spot) "Night Waltz II," not unreleased as indicated on the packaging but previously available on the RCA set A Collector's Sondheim. And the score remains flawless, as Broadway will hear next season when the show gets revived (with Glenn Close the likely Desiree). Still, the first cast remains the finest: Glynis Johns' deliciously earthy Desiree Gingold's droll mother Patricia Elliott's dry Charlotte the never-equaled Anne of Victoria Mallory the ideal singing of leading men Len Cariou and Laurence Guittard. There are also the good first London cast recording (Jean Simmons, Hermione Gingold, Joss Ackland, Diane Langton, David Kernan), the film soundtrack (and video release), and a TER/JAY studio disc (Sian Phillips, Elisabeth Welch, Maria Friedman). There is one other recording - Tring's CD of the recent Royal National Theatre revival - that is a must, particularly as it restores "My Husband, The Pig," combines the different "Glamorous Life" songs from the stage and film versions, and preserves Judi Dench's Desiree. Remastered for the first time, this recording really needs no recommendation from me it's essential.Īs is the Broadway cast album of A Little Night Music, the Sondheim show that arrived three years later. ![]() That disc is available on a Sony West End CD, but one track - Kert's "Being Alive" - is included as a bonus here. Larry Kert took over for original leading man Dean Jones in New York, then continued in London for the latter engagement, a second LP was issued identical to this one but with Kert in place of Jones. In addition to Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, Boris Aronson, and Jonathan Tunick all functioning at their peak, the original production featured one of the more distinctive (and in some cases irreplaceable) casts in musicals of the last three decades this was amply brought home by the 1993 reunion concerts in Los Angeles and New York (not to mention those revivals). Hearing them in 1970 at the Alvin and on the Columbia LP was electrifying, a door opening on a new sound and level of Broadway originality and brilliance. Sondheim came into his own as composer-lyricist here, creating for this conceptual landmark a series of showstoppers as powerful as anything he's ever done. The third group of Columbia Broadway Masterworks reissues includes two Stephen Sondheim Broadway cast albums, one Rodgers and Hammerstein, and two Gershwin studio cast recordings.Īlthough Company has two other cast recordings -from the mid '90s Broadway (Angel) and West End (First Night) revivals (the latter production, directed by Sam Mendes for the Donmar Warehouse, was also televised in England) - they are almost negligible when compared with the original Broadway cast recording. ![]()
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