Titanic--Original Broadway Cast album on CD

This show really reminds me of Ragtime for some reason. I think it might be the historical setting of the show, the range of social and economic levels it tries to portrays and the fluidity with which both shows move from setting to setting--very film-like. While I generally liked, Ragtime, however, Titanic left me a little cold.

The opening is very well constructed, introducing us in succession to the crew and each class of passengers, and building into a climax as the ship sets sail (do you still call it that when there is no actual sail?). From then on, however, the score and the characters left me flat.

One wonderful discovery is the singing of Brian d'Arcy James, who had not appeared as yet in my Year, but who has a wonderful voice. Mr. James has loads of Broadway credits (including the current Shrek), so I hope to squeeze him into my Year again before the 12 months end on May 31.

Titanic
Music and lyrics by Maury Yeston
Book by Peter Stone
Opened in 1997
Cast: Brian D'Arcy James, Martin Moran, John Cunningham, Ted Sperling, Allan Corduner, Michael Cerveris

Triumph of Love--OBC album

The title of this show says a lot about it, I think. Could there be a more trite and derivative title than Triumph of Love? Even the library worker when I checked out this cast album commented that this wasn't the experience he had had (poor, lonely man--well, really me in about 25 years). Much of the rest of the listening experience with this show was equal to the title.

Who knew that F. Murray Abraham could sing? Well, he can't. He does a sort of Rex Harrison, Richard Burton (pick your Lerner and Loewe sing-speak role) thing. And it wouldn't be awful, except that the role is not written to be done that way, and Mr. Abraham is often teamed up in duets with real singers.

I also took issue with the style of music and style of singing of this show. Both music and voices are very modern sounding and American to me, yet the story is historical and European, or maybe even Classically Greek--I couldn't quite tell, which should point out a problem with this show as presented on disc. In the photos, the costumes are European 18th Century, but the libretto mentions places like Sparta. If I've missed something from the liner notes, I'm sure you'll point it out.

The music by Jeffrey Stock is rather bland and all sounded the same to me after a while, some songs a little faster, some a little slower. The two exceptions to that may be "Mr. Right", which I thought was funny and could have a life outside the show, and "Henchman are Forgotten" which is a sort of "Brush up your Shakespeare"-like song.

Part of the problem for me with the music maybe that Susan Egan and Betty Buckley are very similar in styles of singing. While they sound different, both have strong chest voices and little or no head voices. Couldn't one of the women in the show be a soprano? I need to check out Susan Egan's history; in her singing voice she sounds like any number of Disney heroines (Belle, Ariel, pick your animated story).

Triumph of Love
Music by Jeffrey Stock
Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Book by James Magruder

Opened in 1997
Cast: Susan Egan, F Murray Abraham, Betty Buckey, Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin, Nancy Opel, Christopher Sieber

Classical Monday--Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen

I've talked in previous postings how important singing in a choir is to me. There is very little I get more satisfaction from than singing with a group of committed choral singers. And to scratch that continual itch for that last 20 years, I have sung in a 36-voice volunteer church choir. Every Sunday from September through June, the choir provides one or two anthems in the church service, as well as "incidental music" for the service. Once or twice a year, though, the choir performs a larger mass, or cantata as the focus of the church service. Yesterday we performed Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen (pictured right, receiveing a 2007 National Medal of the Arts).

While it's not unheard of for my choir to sing music of a living composer, I don't believe we have sung a larger work by one. The usual dead, white men music we have sung are masses, or requiems, or cantatas of Haydn, Britten, Handel, Debussy, Faure, Durufle, Vivaldi, Bach and others. I have nothing against singing this music, in fact I love it; but discovering the music of Mr. Lauridsen has show me how current good choral music can be. I should say that my choir has sung cantatas of Conrad Susa and a Latino composer whose name I can't recall, Rodriguez maybe, and they could still be living, I'm not certain. Oh wait, I just remembered we sang a collection of arrangements of Christmas carols by a former pastor of our church; he's still living, but I won't count that piece for many reasons.

Mr. Lauridsen's compositions definitely have a certain sound to them. I don't know enough about music to define that sound, but there is a lushness with the use of 7ths, 9th and 2nds in many of the chords. The music can be very satisfying to sing, and really rewards the choral singer who knows how to sing "on top" of the voice and can listen across their own and the other voice sections. Rarely is the bass part the "shimmer note" of the chord, but when that did happen I wanted to hear how my part conflicted with its neighbor, rather than just bombast my way through the texture, as is my initial reaction to needing to find my note in a thick chord.

I can take a little pride that I was the one who introduced the music of Lauridsen to my choir. A couple of years ago I purchased Lauridsen's anthem O Magnum Mysterium as a gift to the choir. I've been pleased to heard my choir-mates reactions to singing that piece--so much so that two other choir members purchased the Lux Aeterna scores for this performances. You're welcome. No, really, I mean thank you. I've gotten so much more out of being a member of my choir for 20 year than I could ever give back.

Lux Aeterna
Music by Morten Lauridsen
Lyrics adapted from the Latin mass (although with some text that I have never sung in a mass before, and I swear is more Pig Latin than Latin)
Written in 1997

Hey, Love the songs of Mary Rodgers on CD

In many ways, I love cabaret even more than musical theater. The emphasis is usually on the song and the singer which leads to much more successful results often, while in a full-blown musical the sets and costumes and story can lead to the show just being fully blown. So I was happy to discover the album of Hey Love the songs of Mary Rodgers in the bin at the library. I was doubly happy to discover that Faith Prince leads the cast of three, since I've recently enjoyed her in Guys & Dolls and A Catered Affair.

Cabaret works best for me when it has a very catch-all theme that lets in a lot, but makes you look at it from a certain perspective and Hey Love fits that mold. Loosely following the struggles of one woman and two men to pair up, either with one other or with someone else, the show uses Rodgers' songs from Once Upon a Mattress, The Mad Show, Hot Spot, The Lady or the Tiger, and songs from unproduced ventures. I knew the songs from Mattress, but all the other songs are new to me--and they are uniformly delightful.

The songs from Hot Spot were written for Judy Holliday, and it is in that vein that Ms. Prince thrives here, showcasing both lyric singing and comic timing. Ms. Prince's two leading men (who vy for her hand and heart) are Mark Waldrop and Jason Workman. Both have pleasant voices that can get into the upper range of some of these songs. The booklet with the CD doesn't identify who is singing at what time, so I can't really differentiate between them.

The number of lyricists Ms. Rodgers has used runs a long gamut. Stephen Sondheim was a long-time friend of the Rodgers family, so it is no surprise that he has been a frequent partner with Ms. Rodgers. His lyrics to "The Boy from..." are particularly hysterical. The song Sondheim co-wrote with Rodgers "Once I had a Friend" is a beautiful gay-friendly ballad. I was also taken with the setting of Shakespeare's "O Mistress Mine."

Richard Malty, Jr. is credited with the creation and original direction of this show, along with writing some new lyrics in several places. Mr. Waldrop is credited with having written some of the lyrics to these songs, as well as directing this incarnation of the show. I believe this was the third production of the show, so I don't know if it was created for some specific performer, or merely as a showcase for the songs. Regardless, I'm glad to have have it brighten my Year.

Hey, Love the songs of Mary Rodgers
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer, Martin Charnin, Richard Maltby, Jr., William Shakespeare, Stephen Sondheim, MArk Waldrop
Cast Album recorded in 1997
Cast: Faith Prince, Mark Waldrop, Jason Workman

Jekyll & Hyde The Musical stage version on DVD

My Year is invaded by The Hoff! Yes, David Hasselhoff appears as both Jekyll and Hyde in this filmed version of the stage musical Jekyll & Hyde The Musical.

Frank Wildhorn's erratic and rambling tunes do no favors to his performers. While being very listenable, they seem to lack a structure that allows a performer to build songs into a climax. The Hoff suffers the most under this limitation, as Jekyll and Hyde are of course given the most power ballads. A lot of the exposition and plot-moving is accomplished in the equivalent of musical theater recitatives, which have even less structure than the songs.

My first response to listening to this was that Mr. Wildhorn suffered under his own, pedestrian lyrics. But in looking this show up on the Broadway database, I see that Mr. Wildhorn did not write the lyrics or book. They are credited to Leslie Bricusse, famous for a long partnership with Anthony Newly that led to such shows as The Smell of the Greasepaint, the Roar of the Crowd. Fortunately, there is enough blame to go around.

As for Mr. Hasselhoff, I doff my hat to him. He gives a very committed performance that requires a huge range of emotions, and a large vocal range. If his baritone at times seems a bit unsupported, then at least the short phrases of the libretto allow for frequent breaths.

Mr. Wildhorn's wife, Linda Eder in her Broadway debut, originated the role of Lucy, the club singer. Here that role is played by Coleen Sexton. Barrie Ingham appeared both in the Broadway original and this cast. Of course this show ran for more than 1500 performances, proving that no one ever went broke underestimating the tastes of the public.

Jekyll & Hyde The Musical

Music by Frank Wildhorn

Lyrics and book by Leslie Bricusse

Based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson

Cast: David Hasselhoff, Coleen Sexton, Andrea Rivette, Barry Ingham, George Merritt

Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill concert performance on DVD

In the 1990s an icon of the 60s recasts herself as an icon of Weimar Germany. When Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill she channels Weill-muse Lotte Lenya. Ms. Faithfull with her pianist Paul Trueblood includes 11 songs, 8 of which are from the Weill European catalogue in this hour-long cabaret act which was filmed in 1997 for the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Among the "usual" Weill fare (Alabama Song, Pirate Jenny, Surabaya Johnny) is the haunting anti-war song "What was Sent to the Soldier's Wife" and three non-Weill songs, including a Noel Coward piece. Ms. Faithfull provides a bit of narrative to introduce the songs and string the Weill/Brecht pieces into their history, but for the most part this is a straight-forward cabaret recital, and the fans clearly love her.

In a video-taped press conference included as a DVD extra, Ms. Faithfull says she has lived with these songs her whole life, as her mother was an Austrian ballet dancer who had 78s of Weill's music when she emigrated to Britain after World War II. She sings them as if she's lived with them, as well as having lived with the emotions behind the songs. And while Faithfull might not live up to ghost of Lenya, she keeps the tradition of the whiskey-voice chanteuse (is there a German version of that word?) alive for a new generation.

Also in the press conference, Faithfull credits the translations of the German to an Irish writer friend of hers, whose name I didn't catch. The translation that srtuck me was for "Pirate Jenny" from The Three Penny Opera; it was unlike any version I had heard before and didn't flow with the music like I expected.

Another entry that's not really a Broadway musical. Points for exploring, but maybe points taken off for not very aptly managing the order of discs I watch.

Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill
Music by Kurt Weill, Noel Coward and others
Text by Bertold Brecht and others
Filmed at the 1997 Montreal International Jazz Festival
Released on DVD
Cast: Marianne Faithfull, Paul Trueblood