Monday, August 3, 2015
Original London Cast, 1930 (Columbia/Pearl) One of the quintessential musicals of the 1920s, Rio Rita was also a bit of an oddity, poised as it was on the brink between musical comedy and op…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:50PM[SHARE]Sunday, August 2, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1984 (Polygram/JAY) For Broadway diva lovers, it's the Fight of the Century. In this corner: Chita Rivera as Anna, a feisty, middle-aged widow who's about to walk out…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:57PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1976 (RCA) No stars; not recommended. This late-career Richard Rodgers flop, about the marital problems of Henry VIII, revealed the composer to be out of touch with c…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:50PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1996 (Dreamworks, 2CDs) Rent is a heartbreaking work in more than one sense. First, it's a moving reimagination of La Bohème as a portrait of struggling artists on N…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:35PM[SHARE]Original Los Angeles Cast, 1999 (Madness Records) Musicals don't come any sillier than the Kevin Murphy (lyrics-book) and Dan Studney (music-book) adaptation of Reefer Madness. This wacky sh…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:17PM[SHARE]Ethel Merman With Studio Artists, 1936 (Liberty/AEI) {usr=4] Hoping for another Anything Goes, producer Vinton Freedley put Cole Porter and Ethel Merman together again, this time adding Jimm…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:08PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (RCA/Fynsworth Alley) With a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, Sidney Sheldon, and David Shaw, music by Albert Hague, and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, Redhead is …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:56AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 30, 2015
"Songs from Ragtime," 1996 (RCA) One of the most precious gems of the American musical theater, Ragtime is replete with beautiful performances on this first recording of the magnificent scor…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:12AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast Members, 1986 (Sony) High on the list of flops that deserved better is this four-performance heartbreaker by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Stephen Schwartz. Th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:53AM[SHARE]Original Cast, 1995 (Varèse Sarabande) In this comedic concept musical by Mike Craver and Mark Hardwick, we're supposed to be hearing a radio broadcast emanating illegally from the home of …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:27AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1973 (Columbia/Sony) Despite its healthy Broadway run and its Tony Award for Best Musical, Raisin is almost completely forgotten. Fortunately, the Robert Nemiroff-Cha…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:28PM[SHARE]Off-Broadway Cast, 1993 (RCA) There have been tons of Stephen Sondheim revues, but the big attraction of Putting It Together was unique: Julie Andrews singing Sondheim, live, in a tiny theat…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:11PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Ampex/RCA) With music by Gary Geld and lyrics by Peter Udell, this show is based on the play Purlie Victorious by Ossie Davis, who adapted the musical in collab…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PM[SHARE]Original Cast, 1982 (Columbia/Sony) An unexpected delight when it opened, this revue of countryish songs doesn't have much in the way of a story line. The setup of a roadside stop populated …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:38PM[SHARE]Monday, July 20, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (United Artists/MGM/Kritzerland) Based on the film The Apartment, this show was the only Broadway effort of pop songwriters Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:11PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1969 (RCA) ]usr=1] Two prisoners identified as "105" and "106" escape from jail and wander through various settings, including a park, a banquet, and a battlefiel…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:47AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2001 (Sony) Here is Mel Brooks' full-blown musical version of his semi-musical 1968 movie about a has-been Broadway producer's backfired scheme to bilk his show's inv…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:36AM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (JAY) Based on Mark Twain's novel about a pair of 16th-century London lookalikes who swap identities, this adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper played a r…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:25AM[SHARE]Original Australian Cast, 2000 (Prodigal Son Productions) Australian librettist-lyricist Dean Bryant and composer Matthew Frank took inspiration from the Bible for their musical Prodigal Son…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:09AM[SHARE]Original Cast, 1971 (Original Cast Records/Varèse Sarabande) A woman who lives in the Deep South wants to repent for her husband's deplorable hostilities toward minorities " so she beds bla…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:00AM[SHARE]Friday, July 17, 2015
Original Broadway Cast Members, 1940/1942 (Decca) Porgy and Bess may be the most fabulous failure in musical theater history, although it can only be judged a failure in that its original 19…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:18PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1997 (Varèse Sarabande) Play On! was at least the fourth musical adapted from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to play, albeit briefly, in New York. This version moved th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:09PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1955 (Capitol/DRG) Listening to a second-rank score, a longtime musical theater lover will marvel at how often just-above-par tuners were a dependable source for Hit …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:24PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1972 (Motown/Decca) Stephen Schwartz wrote the score for this hippy-dippy medieval musical. John Rubinstein starred as the son of Charlemagne, roaming the Holy Roman …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:12PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1955 (RCA) Rodgers and Hammerstein may not have been the ideal team to put the chippies and layabouts of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row onstage in a musical; it's tanta…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:52PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1962 (Columbia/Sony) This 1930s topical revue is legendary for its original cast of talented shop workers from the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. Featuring songs b…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:29PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1978 (Original Cast Records/no CD) No stars; not recommended. Time was when you could buy an original cast recording with a reasonable amount of confidence. If a …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:18PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1975 (Gallery/no CD) Composer Harvey Schmidt has consistently written lovely, dramatic, and distinctive music. Philemon is the story of Cockian, a street clow…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:47PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1986 (Polydor, 2CDs) Andrew Lloyd Webber's score for this virtually through-sung musical based on the famous novel by Gaston Leroux contains many wonderful melodies; un…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:04PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1993 (RCA) Unfortunately, Maury Yeston (music and lyrics) and Arthur Kopit (book) began work on their own adaptation of the Gaston Leroux potboiler The Phantom of the Opera conc…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:37AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1954 (RCA) James M. Barrie's ever-young story of the boy who wouldn't grow up has been a favorite in print and on the stage and screen for more than a century. While …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:56AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
