Carnival Original Broadway Cast Album on CD

I hear you collectively asking "What happened to listening to cast albums, Michael? All your musical entries since July 12th have been musicals for film or television captured on DVD. Isn't the point of your Year to recapture the magic that listening to cast albums first gave you?"

Well, I have heard your queries and can respond. Getting DVDs through Netflix has been easier than finding recordings. All of the cast albums I've listened to so far have been owned by me. I'm determined to spend my musical money this Year seeing shows live, rather than buying additional cast albums, so I'm meting out the recordings I have left in my meager collection and looking into what the Chicago Public Library may have to offer for my listening pleasure.

In the meantime, I have listened to the cast album of Bob Merrill's Carnival, starring favorite song and dance man Jerry Orbach and crystalline-voice Anna Maria Alberghetti.

Carnival was one of the first musicals I saw live on stage, in a high school production that featured my baby-sitter. My guess is it was 1976 or '77. I remember nothing about it, except that the girl who played Lili (not my baby-sitter) had her arm in a cast, and I was uncertain if that was part of the story or if the girl just had a broken arm and they needed to "go on with the show." In reading through the byzantine description of how the story became the musical, and the plot of the musical, it's no wonder I don't remember much.

I have heard the most famous song from the score "Love Makes the World Go 'Round" too often and find it rather cloying at this point. The treat of discovery, though, is most of the rest of the music, which runs the gamut of styles without ever becoming predictable. The best songs of the score, for me, are "Her Face" and "She's My Love." These are Broadway baritone anthems, and I can't believe they're not sung more often. The Mel Torme version of "Her Face", presented as one of the CD bonus tracks, is over-produced and does no favor to the song. One delight of the bonus tracks is the jazz trombone choir version of "Mira" by J.J. Johnson, which has a slightly N'awlins funeral feel to it.

Bob Merrill appeared previously in my Year as the lyricist for Funny Girl, and I find it interesting that he was also a composer. Are there many Broadway composers who have written lyrics for other composer's music? I can only think of Stephen Sondheim.

Carnival
Music and Lyrics by Bob Merrill
Book by Michael Stewart
Original Broadway Cast Album on CD
Recorded in 1961; reissued with additional bonus tracks in 1989
Cast: Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jerry Orbach, Kaye Ballard, Pierre Olaf, James Mitchell

Funny Girl film on DVD

The hair, the voice, the nails, the comedic timing, the nose. It's hard to separate this show from Barbra Streisand. I actually did this musical in high school (obviously without Ms. Streisand), and I do wonder whatever happened to Lisa who played Fanny. She was the closest thing to a triple threat my high school produced. A good comedienne and a great dancer. I honestly don't remember much about her singing voice, but she must have had one.

I could have the gay mafia after me for this comment, but Funny Girl is not one of my favorite musicals, and there are parts of the film and its performances which don't sit well with me. It's so obviously a star vehicle, which runs contrary to the ensemble atmosphere that I like best about doing theater. The chorus has very little to do in this show (and even less in the film, which cuts the big chorus number "Henry Street"). No good duets either. How about a love song? The closest we get is the seduction song "You are Woman, I am Man." And the memorable numbers from the show sound very 1960s rather than very 1910s--much like Ms. Streisand's hair, nails and costumes.

Still it's hard not to be thrilled as the helicopter shot zooms down toward the tugboat as Fanny in mink hat belts out "Rain on my Parade".

Funny Girl
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Bob Merrill
Book by Isobel Lennart
1968 film released by Columbia Pictures
Cast: there are really only two that matter.