My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies on DVD

This is another of those special concerts at a prestigious venue, drawing in the glitterati of the musical theater world, performing for the creme of society paying top dollar, with the resulting performance being film and presented on PBS or somewhere, followed by the DVD being sold to the general public (and fortunately, Netflix). It's a formula.

With My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies filmed in 1998 it's a formula that works very well:

• Prestigious venue? Check-Carnegie Hall.


• Glitterati of Musical Theater? Check-Julie Andrews, Faith Prince, Liza Minnelli, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Jennifer Holliday, Judy Kuhn, Bebe Neuwirth, and a host of others including the Rockettes, who are the most literally glittering of the -ati.


• Creme of society? I'm not in a position to identify who is in the audience or what they paid to be there, but the hall is full, and most rows seem to include several giddy gay men clapping wildly for Liza.

The main reason this formula works so well in this example is that the fare offered includes a good balance of the usual, the expected, and the unique. Yes, there is Andrea McArdle singing "Tomorrow" and Jennifer Holliday singing her song from Dreamgirls (and blowing the roof off the place, BTW) and Elaine Stritch toasting the "Ladies who Lunch", but there is also the phenomenal Debra Monk, nailing every bit of "Everybody's Girl" from Steele Pier, and Audra McDonald singing a wonderful, clever arrangement of "Down with Love". Ms. McDonald is also joined by Marin Mazzie and Judy Kuhn for a clever medley of Andrew Lloyd Webber songs.

I could have done without Tony Roberts and Robert Morse opening the concert with a number in drag (I assume from a musical version of Some Like It Hot that I don't know). These women can hold their own without any help from the Y chromosome.

Allegro--Studio Cast Recording

I've had this CD sitting for a while waiting for me to pick it up and listen to it.  It is a bit daunting even to look at--a two-disc set with an hour and forty minutes of music and dialogue and an 80-page booklet of synopsis, libretto, and multiple articles on the history of this challenging show While there are many performers I greatly anticipated hearing in this studio recording, I was a little bit afraid of Allegro. 

Turns out, I was afraid with good reason.  There is a lot to digest in what is billed as the first complete recording of this score and not a lot to hold on to.   I think that is part of the plan of this cradle-to-midlife show, though; life offers us a lot to digest, and just a few things to hold on to during the journey.   But the theme doesn't translate into a listenable score.

Baritone Nathan Gunn has been a favorite singer of mine for several years, since I discovered his debut recital disc on EMI.  While he makes most of his appearances in opera houses, he is increasingly entering the world of the Broadway musical--most notably a semi-staged performance of Camelot with Marin Mazzie and Gabriel Byrne, where Mr. Gunn sang the role of Lancelot.  Here, Gunn has the role of the elder Dr. Joseph Taylor.  He's given little to sing. Audra McDonald, in the role of the elder Taylor's wife is given a bit more. 

The challenge in listening to this score is that much of the action is described by sung and spoken choruses and there are few full songs given to the primary characters.  It almost feels like much of the first act is exposition, rather than action.

There were a couple of songs I had heard before, but didn't know they were from this show. I think  "What a Lovely Day for a Wedding" was in the Richard Rodgers concert I listened to several months ago.  The song "Mountain Greenery" is from Rodgers' time with Larry Hart and is used here to evoke the 1920s era--when it was written, of course.  There was little or nothing in first act of the score that really grabbed my attention.  In the second act "The Gentleman is a Dope" is a fun song and well sung here by Liz Callaway.  The title song "Allegro" is lively and tells me this show is also about the speed of our lives. "Come Home" is lovely and well sung by Audra McDonald, but seems weird sung by a character who is dead--if a jilted wife were singing it, it would hold more emotional punch, I think.

The articles in the booklet all talk about how Allegro was an early experimental musical and how the production concept used scenic pieces to suggest locations rather than using full sets.  I found it interesting that R and H were inspired in part by Our Town, and there are certainly similarities is style and content.  However, this show and recording leave me thinking the score is only musical bits, too.

Allegro

Music by Richard Rodgers

Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Opened in 1947

Cast: Nathan Gunn, Audra McDonald, Judy Kuhn, Laura Benanti, Patrick Wilson, Norbert Leo Butz, Liz Callaway

Ragtime The Musical: Mostly Original Broadway Cast recording

This recording is not listed as being the OBC album, but rather as "Songs from" Ragtime The Musical .  I wonder if E.L. Doctorow insisted on this being listed as "The Musical", so as not to confuse it with "The Novel" or "The Film" or "The Hip-Hop Concert."  While most of the cast of this recording is the cast that appeared on the Broadway opening night of this show, there are a couple of significant personnel changes.  If you know why, please tell me.  Oh, wait, I see, this was the out of town try-out cast in Toronto, not the Broadway cast.

I saw Ragtime on tour in Chicago close to a decade ago.  I remember thinking that it was a lovely score hampered by some pedestrian directing.  I put my career at risk with that statement, as the show was directed by Frank Galati, noted Chicago writer/director.  But as Galati also directed the brief, toxic production of Pirate Queen, which played Chicago before dying on Broadway--no one is immune to the creating schlock.

Ragtime is not schlock, even by the most curmudgeonly of standards.  There is powerful music, here, sung in powerful and effective ways.   But somehow it tries to take on too much for my tastes.   While the pastiche numbers for Evelyn Nesbitt, Henry Ford, Emma Goldberg, and Harry Houdini give a good feel for the era, they get in the way of telling the human stories of Mother, Father, Coalhouse, and Sarah. 

What a great cast, though.  Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie are three of my favorite singers each given one fantastic song to sing and several interesting ensemble numbers (although if I hear that Ragtime theme once more, I may take a sledge hammer to the honky-tonk piano--a feeling I remember having after seeing the show live, too).  I think this is Mark Jacoby's first appearance in my year; I must look for other recordings with him.

Ragtime

Music by Stephen Flaherty

Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

Book by Terrence McNally

Toronto Cast recorded in 1996 before the show opened on Broadway in 1997

Cast: Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie, Mark Jacoby, Jim Corti, Camille Saviola, 

Myths & Hymns by Adam Guettel

I have been looking for a way to include some music of Adam Guettel in my Year, and thanks to a friend lending me this disc, I can start with Myths & Hymns. It's certainly not a Broadway musical, but Mr. Guettel is known as a Broadway composer, so I'll gladly including this work, which is more like a chamber music song cycle, or a semi-agnostic cantata.

Mr. Guettel is a member of the first family of Broadway--no, I don't mean the Nederlanders. He is the grandson of Richard Rodgers and the son of Mary Rodgers, both of whom have appeared in my Year already. He is best know for his show The Light in the Piazza, which I have not heard yet. I'm more anxious to hear that now that I've heard M & H, because I'm not certain how to take it's compositional style, or should I say styles. This is good, interesting songwriting for the most part.

The theme of these songs, which loosely tie them together, is longing--whether it be for God, or resolve, or heaven, or love. There is a slightly secular feel to many of the songs, but in all the hymns (adapted from an 1886 hymnbook) and in the original songs on mythological figures, someone is crying out for, or reaching out for something they don't have--and maybe something they shouldn't have.

I'm intrigued by the Temple Trio Hymnbook of 1886 that inspired the Hymns of this cycle. Old hymnals were a bit of an interest of mine a while ago, but that interest has taken a back seat to other things. The singers are good throughout, even if their style of singing is not my favorite style. There is a lot of squalling, which leaves me cold. Mr. Guettel does a lot of the singing, and I don't really care for his voice.

I look forward to listening to a score that is more involved with character than theme, to see how our Mr. Guettel delivers that.

Myths & Hymns
Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel
Additional lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh
Recorded in 1999 based on a concert given in 1998
Cast: Adam Guettel, Theresa McCarthy, Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin, Darius de Haas, Vivian Cherry, Billy Porter, Annie Golden

Wonderful Town -- concert version on DVD

No offense to Maestro Simon Rattle, the Berlin Philharmonic, or the fine opera and musical theater performers involved in this concert of Bernstein's music, but why was this concert version of Wonderful Town presented? In English, in front of a German audience? So much of the wit of the lyrics must have been lost in translation, even with the supertitles flashing above the stage. The context of the songs and struggles of the characters is also lost, since not even a ghost of the book is presented to string together the songs.

That said, the music-making is very good. Audra McDonald proves her worth with "A Little Bit in Love." Kim Criswell is a wonderful character singer in "Conga" and "100 Ways to Lose a Man". Operatic baritone Thomas Hampson sings the surprise of the score for me, the beautiful "A Quiet Girl". Musical theater veteran Brent Barrett takes on what must be several roles in singing the opening "Christopher Street" and "I Could Pass that Football".

Even with this fine singing, though, I felt like I was missing too much.

Wonderful Town
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

Book MIA
Concert by Berlin Philharmonic
Conducted by Simon Rattle
Released on DVD in 2002
Cast: Thomas Hampson, Audra McDonald, Kim Criswell, Brent Barrett