My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Letter C
The CYRANO Dossier: I am a huge fan of the OBC of the production for which Christopher Plummer won a Tony award, so I imported it and I listen to it. I came across recordings of other musical versions of the great play and here is what I discovered: the production that starred that Dutch guy – snore. Delete. The studio album that stars Brent Carver is lovely..LOVELY.. but I will say this: this Cyrano is not as witty as the man is in the original play. He is poetic and his songs are pretty, but the biting wit is missing. A few minor deletions. TheCyrano/Grand Tour cd that is two musicals from early in the Maltby Shire career couldn’t be taken out of my Ipod fast enough. Love the men and their later works; hate this cd. HATE it. Awful.
CRANKS is a UK musical starring my childhood idol, Anthony Newley and I actually didn’t like most of it. It hurt my ears. I deleted all but the melodic songs he performs on the cd. I loved him, so.
COPACABANA is a UK musical based on a tv movie musical from the 80s, based on the Barry Manilow song. Surprise! The songs are good, the vocals are good, the recording is good. High marks all round.
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE. Bad surprise. Didn’t like it. Thought I would. Didn’t. I love the vocalists’ recordings of songs from this show but I hate these legit voices performing the numbers on the OBC. Won’t play ‘em. This upset me.
THE COLOR PURPLE. OH. MY. GOSH. I love this cd! I love the songs and their ability to carry a through line that tells the story of the play. I love the performances. This cd is a must have, a must keep, a must listen. I love it! So glad I found it. I didn’t see the show because, when it was running, I read articles in the paper about the misbehaviour of audiences; I don’t shell out big bucks to go to a tent revival where people are eating buckets of Church’s chicken. I flat out refused to go, even when my diva, Chaka Kahn was in it. Audiences have sense of etiquette anymore and ushers don’t know how to do their jobs. Now that I have heard the cd, I’m sad I missed it. But not 100 plus dollars sad…
CHRISTINE. Hailed by all musical theater historians as a terrible show, it ran some 9 or so performances. A die hard Maureen O’Hara fan, I played it from start to finish and declared that I like it. So historians: bite me.
[For the Record: CRAZY FOR YOU is perf. I play it all the time. Perf. CONTACT – well … I certainly enjoyed watching this dance show. However, the music isn’t music I will listen to so I deleted a lot of this cd, except certain tracks from the Girl in the Yellow Dress segment. COCO: lovely overture, some good character songs for Katharine Hepburn and a great finale. That says it all but, specifically, it comes down to about four tracks left in my Ipod. CLOSER THAN EVER makes up for Maltby Shire’s Cyrano. Sally Mayes ALONG makes it worth listening to; so I DO play this cd! CITY OF ANGELS is fun. I cut out one or two songs that I don’t like but left most of it in. CINDERELLA is in my Julie Andrews section, entirely, so when I got the cd of the Leslie Warren tv version, I imported her numbers. CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG wasn’t a great stage play; and the UK recording is pretty, if a bit benigh. However, this cd was a gift from Brady and the film is my first movie ever and one of my favourites, ever, so as far as I’m concerned, this cd had to stay in my Ipod, fully; and it did. CHESS is in my Ipod by way of the Broadway cast album because of my deep, abiding love for David Carroll. I like the concept album and need to put it in but since I have Elaine Paige’s cuts from the recording in my Elaine Paige section, I just never bothered to…. CATS – um. Yeah. I put in all of Betty Buckley’s numbers and the songs Macavity and Gus the theater cat. That’s all I can, feesibly, handle. CAROUSEL – tricky. The OBC is SO legit. That beautiful revival with Audra McDonald – Um.. Michael Hayden’s vocals. Then there is the lovely studio cast recording with Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman…. So I sort of have a Carousel patchwork quilt with bits from here and there. It works for me. As long as I have one good recording of the waltz, I’m good to go. CARNIVAL is lovely. CAN CAN is a Cole Porter show so I was destined to love it when I got a recording from a friend’s mom while in high school. I did love it and played it all the time. It wasn’t until years later that I was to understand that I was not listening to the OBC but, instead, to the West End production with Irene Hilda. That’s’ the one I listen to, today, in my Ipod in its entirey. CALL ME MADAM (& PANAMA HATTIE) is a cd of selections from the two shows, performed by Ethel Merman. It is not a cast album – but it’s the Merm doing these songs. It stays. The Encores! Recording of Call Me Madam with Tyne Daly is a little less satisfying but she is such a freakin’ brill actress, I had to put her tracks in here and listen to them. I do, too. I love her. I don’t love the rest of that recording, so I deleted them.]
CRANKS is a UK musical starring my childhood idol, Anthony Newley and I actually didn’t like most of it. It hurt my ears. I deleted all but the melodic songs he performs on the cd. I loved him, so.
COPACABANA is a UK musical based on a tv movie musical from the 80s, based on the Barry Manilow song. Surprise! The songs are good, the vocals are good, the recording is good. High marks all round.
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE. Bad surprise. Didn’t like it. Thought I would. Didn’t. I love the vocalists’ recordings of songs from this show but I hate these legit voices performing the numbers on the OBC. Won’t play ‘em. This upset me.
THE COLOR PURPLE. OH. MY. GOSH. I love this cd! I love the songs and their ability to carry a through line that tells the story of the play. I love the performances. This cd is a must have, a must keep, a must listen. I love it! So glad I found it. I didn’t see the show because, when it was running, I read articles in the paper about the misbehaviour of audiences; I don’t shell out big bucks to go to a tent revival where people are eating buckets of Church’s chicken. I flat out refused to go, even when my diva, Chaka Kahn was in it. Audiences have sense of etiquette anymore and ushers don’t know how to do their jobs. Now that I have heard the cd, I’m sad I missed it. But not 100 plus dollars sad…
CHRISTINE. Hailed by all musical theater historians as a terrible show, it ran some 9 or so performances. A die hard Maureen O’Hara fan, I played it from start to finish and declared that I like it. So historians: bite me.
[For the Record: CRAZY FOR YOU is perf. I play it all the time. Perf. CONTACT – well … I certainly enjoyed watching this dance show. However, the music isn’t music I will listen to so I deleted a lot of this cd, except certain tracks from the Girl in the Yellow Dress segment. COCO: lovely overture, some good character songs for Katharine Hepburn and a great finale. That says it all but, specifically, it comes down to about four tracks left in my Ipod. CLOSER THAN EVER makes up for Maltby Shire’s Cyrano. Sally Mayes ALONG makes it worth listening to; so I DO play this cd! CITY OF ANGELS is fun. I cut out one or two songs that I don’t like but left most of it in. CINDERELLA is in my Julie Andrews section, entirely, so when I got the cd of the Leslie Warren tv version, I imported her numbers. CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG wasn’t a great stage play; and the UK recording is pretty, if a bit benigh. However, this cd was a gift from Brady and the film is my first movie ever and one of my favourites, ever, so as far as I’m concerned, this cd had to stay in my Ipod, fully; and it did. CHESS is in my Ipod by way of the Broadway cast album because of my deep, abiding love for David Carroll. I like the concept album and need to put it in but since I have Elaine Paige’s cuts from the recording in my Elaine Paige section, I just never bothered to…. CATS – um. Yeah. I put in all of Betty Buckley’s numbers and the songs Macavity and Gus the theater cat. That’s all I can, feesibly, handle. CAROUSEL – tricky. The OBC is SO legit. That beautiful revival with Audra McDonald – Um.. Michael Hayden’s vocals. Then there is the lovely studio cast recording with Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman…. So I sort of have a Carousel patchwork quilt with bits from here and there. It works for me. As long as I have one good recording of the waltz, I’m good to go. CARNIVAL is lovely. CAN CAN is a Cole Porter show so I was destined to love it when I got a recording from a friend’s mom while in high school. I did love it and played it all the time. It wasn’t until years later that I was to understand that I was not listening to the OBC but, instead, to the West End production with Irene Hilda. That’s’ the one I listen to, today, in my Ipod in its entirey. CALL ME MADAM (& PANAMA HATTIE) is a cd of selections from the two shows, performed by Ethel Merman. It is not a cast album – but it’s the Merm doing these songs. It stays. The Encores! Recording of Call Me Madam with Tyne Daly is a little less satisfying but she is such a freakin’ brill actress, I had to put her tracks in here and listen to them. I do, too. I love her. I don’t love the rest of that recording, so I deleted them.]
posted by StephenMosher at 11:10 AM
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