Promises, Promises--Original Broadway Cast Album

More Jerry Orbach, please. Okay, let's listen to Promises, Promises, the Burt Bacharach show based on film The Apartment. Burt Bachrach? Of the 60s pop songs? Didn't he just right for Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick? Well, no, apparently he also wrote this show with lyric-writer Hal David, book-writer Neil Simon, and produced by David Merrick.

This score is more than pop-twinged. It is pure pop, and pop of the 1960s. I don't mean that in a bad way, I merely point it out to put the rest of what I'm about to say into some sort of context. Singing traditional musical theater songs is very different from singing pop songs. Not that I sing much of either, but that is my impression. This was a time of tremendous change in the music industry as a whole and for Broadway too. Other 1968 musicals include Hair, Richard Rodgers' No Strings, and 1776. Include Promises, Promises in the mix and you've got some very different styles of musicals. It must have been a challenge for singers to morph into whatever musical style was being asked of them, or for producers to find singers versed in the musical style called for by each score. It probably still is.

To my ears, not much of the singing in Promises, Promises is successful. Much of it sounds under pitch. Even the wonderful Jerry Orbach, who is the most successful singer on this cast album, is sometimes under pitch. Listen to "A Pretty Young Girl Like You" and you'll hear what I mean. Jill O'Hara is more successful than many of the men in her singing, particularly the best known number from the score "I'll Never Fall in Love Again."

Promises, Promises
Music by Burt Bachrach
Lyrics by Hal David
Book by Neil Simon
Opened in 1968
Cast: Jerry Orbach, Jill O'Hara, Donna McKechnie, Edward Winter, Marian Mercer, A Larry Haines.

The Little Prince Television production on DVD

This television production from 1974 was vaguely remembered by me, as I've previously mentioned, so I was glad when Netflix delivered The Little Prince to my mailbox. Richard Kiley is one of those baritone voices I admire--robust without being "woofy" and with enough legato to qualify as real singing. The music, lyrics and screenplay are by Lerner and Loewe, so it marks this team's first appearance in my Year.

The cast of this production, which the Netflix envelope rightly describes as a quasi-musical, also includes Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder, and Donna Mckechnie. Mckechnie is hampered by never being let outside a rose bloom. Fosse shines as the snake who slithers his way through a funny song and dance. It was kind of odd to see Fosse's characteristic isolation-style choreography in a desert setting, but it totally works for a snake. Gene Wilder is perhaps the best of the three, very funny and skittish as the fox.

By far the best piece of music in the production is the title song which Kiley sings toward the end. I hope this song has a life beyond the television production, which seems a bit forgotten with Lerner & Loewe's justifiably more memorable stage musicals.

The Little Prince
Music by Frederick Loewe
Lyrics and Screenplay by Jay Lerner
Directed by Stanley Donen
Created for television in 1974
Cast: Steven Warner, Richard Kiley, Donna Mckechnie, Gene Wilder, Bob Fosse