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Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

Most of the songs that make up what we now call The Great American Songbook originated in Broadway shows. These were songs everyone knew, sang along with and danced to, and were written by George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, and Cole Porter. When the rock ’n’ roll era began in the 1950s and young folks wanted their own music, the paths diverged and, as composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim has said, it soon became possible to have a hit show with no hit songs.

The period of the greatest popularity of Broadway shows is now referred to as The Golden Age and runs roughly parallel to the career of Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960). Hammerstein actually reinvented American musical theater twice, bestowing a new seriousness to the form with Show Boat (1927, written with composer Jerome Kern) and later eschewing musical comedy to create the musical play with Oklahoma! (1943, with composer Richard Rodgers).

For the past six decades or so, most of us who love the great Broadway musicals came to know them by listening to the “Original Cast Albums” of the shows. But making these recordings didn’t begin in earnest until 1943, so the recorded document of earlier shows often came much later (a good recording of the 1927 Show Boat wasn’t finally released until 1988!). Of course, Broadway stars had always made recordings of their hit songs, but these would be mostly dance-band renditions and were rarely accompanied by the show conductors or orchestras. For example Gertrude Lawrence recorded “Someone to Watch Over Me” from Oh, Kay! with piano in 1926 and orchestra in 1927, and Ethel Merman recorded “I Got Rhythm” from the Gershwins’ 1930 Girl Crazy. In England, the 1928 cast of Show Boat was recorded with the original orchestrations, but the 1927 Broadway original was never recorded.

The idea of bringing the entire cast and orchestra into the studio and using the theater orchestrations was pretty much invented by visionary producer Jack Kapp of (American) Decca Records with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943). Two other influential producers are Goddard Lieberson (d. 1977) of Columbia Records and the still-working Thomas Z. Shepard, the heir-apparent to Lieberson at Columbia, and later at RCA Records the driving force behind translating the shows of Stephen Sondheim into aural experiences.

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

Indeed the history of the Broadway cast recording is inextricably tied to the rise of the recording industry as a whole, stretching from the end of the 78-rpm era through the LP era and into the digital age. Beginning as a collection of songs squeezed onto three-or four-minute sides (and helping to create the whole idea of an “album,” literally a collection of discs), these recordings later became the way people most often experienced the shows, and sometimes the only extant document of them.

Early Original Cast Recordings
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943) is generally credited as the first American original cast recording (the Broadway performers, conductor, and orchestra all in the studio at the same time). Jack Kapp had previously recorded Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock on six 78s in 1938, but this was with piano accompaniment only. Kapp’s Oklahoma! recording on six discs proved so popular that a volume two was released with three songs that had been omitted from the original (the current CD contains both volumes in the correct show order). In 1945, Decca recorded Rodgers and Hammerstein’s second show Carousel, also a perennial best-seller.

Many of these early recordings have a slightly frenetic quality due to the need to fit a song on one side of a 10-inch disc (more leeway was provided later by the introduction of 12-inch discs). There was also much cutting and shortening of pieces, particularly overtures and multiple song verses. The famous “Soliloquy” from Carousel was unusually allotted two sides so it wouldn’t need to be altered. The sound quality of these recordings has also suffered over the years, falling victim to trends such as echo-ridden “electronically rechanneled stereo,” but the latest CD releases are in the best mono sound possible, using the original masters if available. Decca’s classic show albums from the late 1940s and early 1950s such as Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls, and The King and I have never sounded better.

Columbia Records began recording Broadway cast albums with the 1946 revival of Show Boat, quickly followed by Finian’s Rainbow (1947) and South Pacific (1949), the latter two produced by Goddard Lieberson. Lieberson soon developed his own style for preserving shows and felt that the recordings should be theatrical in their own right, with as little dialogue (which can become boring on multiple hearings) as possible. This has sometimes led to misconceptions about the shows themselves as Lieberson would create new endings, change song order, and alter tempos at will. A famous example is the South Pacific “finale” which includes a reprise of “Some Enchanted Evening” that doesn’t occur in the score. Lieberson apparently felt that ending the recording the way the show ends (with no singing) was not acceptable! Soon after introducing the LP in 1948, Columbia released the first Broadway cast album in that format, Kiss Me, Kate.

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

In 1956 Lieberson talked his bosses at Columbia Records into bankrolling a new musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion in return for the right to record the cast album and future film and TV rights for CBS. This deal for what would become My Fair Lady not only led to the sparkling original cast album but is still paying off for the company. A bidding war ensued with other labels (particularly RCA and Capitol) looking to duplicate Columbia’s success for the right to record new shows. This was a boon to collectors if not always to the labels. Another boon to musical lovers came when Columbia Records released its first stereo cast album, Bells Are Ringing (1956), which sounds as fresh today as when it was made. Finally it was possible to experience a real sense of theatrical space in the home.

 

Show Boat (1927)
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1927 Show Boat is many things: a backstage musical, a show with somber themes (race relations, miscegenation), a serious musical (with great comedy sprinkled about), and a history of American popular music (operetta, minstrelsy and, because the show ends in the 1927 present, the Charleston). Hammerstein’s libretto proved it was possible to entertain and enlighten at the same time, something he would do until the end of his career. Show Boat was hugely influential on the development of the musical, especially its transition from the faraway palaces and deserts of operetta to a purely American story—a story that would grapple with the very idea of what America is.

The forces required to perform Show Boat are large and various, including an African-American ensemble, a Caucasian ensemble, and multitudes of leading roles of both races. Add to this a huge dancing ensemble, a time frame that moves forward from 1887 to 1927, and scenes that include the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the title vessel, and you have a show that poses myriad production problems.

In 1988, John McGlinn undertook the daunting task of recording Show Boat in as complete a version as possible, incorporating every note written for every version, revival, and film. That he pretty much succeeded is a testament to his dedication to the project (released on a three-CD set by EMI). He used Robert Russell Bennett’s original 1927 orchestrations wherever possible and a luxurious cast drawn from the opera as well as the musical theater worlds, even down to casting silent film star Lillian Gish in a brief but pivotal speaking role. Luckily the opera singers, Frederica von Stade, Jerry Hadley, Teresa Stratas, and Bruce Hubbard were comfortable with musical theater styles, with vocal chops as well as acting chops to spare, especially notable in Stratas’ intense Julie, a brief singing role but a heavy acting one (much dialogue is included). Von Stade (Magnolia, naïve daughter of the owners of the “floating show” Cotton Blossom) and Hadley (Gaylord Ravenal, gambler and ne’er-do-well) make a wonderful leading couple and lend credibility to roles that take them from courtship to marriage, parenthood, divorce, and old age. In the extended “Make Believe” scene (one of the more traditional operetta-like sequences in the show, beginning with “I’ve never seen you before” and ending with “I love you”), their performances progress credibly from the innocence required at the beginning to their fate being sealed with one another at the end. Karla Burns is a spectacular Queenie (the Cotton Blossom cook), especially strong in the trio “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and the portentous “Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’.” David Garrison and Paige O’Hara as the song-and-dance team round out the cast, and the whole piece is given gravitas by Hubbard’s commanding performance of the iconic “Ol’ Man River.” Add to this the sparkling digital sound and the idiomatic playing of the London Sinfonietta and you have the most essential of essential musical theater recordings, rich in humor, drama, and character—not to mention distinctly American songs that will live as long as people love music.

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

Broadway Musicals 1930–1949
The early digital era (and the longer recording time afforded by the compact disc) coupled with a renewed interest in older shows in their original orchestrations brought about many landmark recordings during the 1980s. In fact, some of the earliest digital original cast recordings were made of shows from the 1930s, among them the Broadway revivals of Rodgers and Hart’s 1936 On Your Toes in 1983, with its original orchestrations by Hans Spialek (containing what is still the best recording of the famous “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” ballet), and a Broadway import of the reworked 1937 British musical by Noel Gay, Me and My Girl, in 1986. This interest in early shows was greatly helped by the popularity of New York City Center’s Encores! series that began in 1994 and has attempted to restore original orchestrations and performance styles to the repertoire.

Roxbury Recordings, launched in 1990 by Leonore Gershwin, Ira Gershwin’s widow, is further evidence of this renewed interest in earlier shows. Roxbury soon released all of George Gershwin’s major early musicals in excellent recordings, mostly on the Nonesuch label: Lady, Be Good! (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), Strike Up the Band (1927/1930), Girl Crazy (1930), and Pardon My English (1933).

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

Girl Crazy is especially important for several reasons. It launched the career of the great musical comedy star Ethel Merman, and was packed with hit songs, too, as Gershwin found his own jazzy voice. Another plus, this first recording (Nonesuch) of the complete score included Robert Russell Bennett’s orchestrations. Interestingly it would be in his later Pulitzer Prize-winning show Of Thee I Sing that George Gershwin would spoof operetta conventions, but here he is his most wonderful Jazz-Age self, creating with his brother Ira standards like there was no tomorrow. (And there wasn’t; George would die several years later after creating his “folk opera” Porgy and Bess in 1935 and moving to Los Angeles to write film scores.) Girl Crazy is a veritable hit parade that introduced “I Got Rhythm,” “But Not for Me,” and “Embraceable You.” Legend has it that in the pit on opening night were Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, and Jimmy Dorsey, with Gershwin himself conducting.

For the present recording we have none other than Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft in Ethel Merman’s role as Kate. While no Merman, Luft’s enthusiasm more than compensates with credible renditions of “Sam and Delilah,” “Boy! What Love Has Done to Me!” and the classic “I Got Rhythm.” David Carroll and the wonderful Judy Blazer are terrific as the love interest and Frank Gorshin steals the show with his impressions during a “comic reprise” of “Embraceable You.” However, it’s the chance to hear the music played with zing by actual New York pit players who have a swell time digging into the score that makes this an essential recording.

Before Rodgers and Hammerstein, there was Rodgers and Hart. In the late 1930s Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart had a show on Broadway just about every season (and sometimes two). Hart’s embrace of vernacular and idiom propelled the age of operetta into the age of musical comedy. Only Cole Porter in the Golden Age and Stephen Sondheim in the modern would equal his wordplay, wit, rhymes, puns, and double entendres. While Rodgers and Hart are chiefly remembered today for heartfelt ballads like “My Funny Valentine,” “My Heart StoodStill,”and“WhereorWhen,”folks at the time were more taken by up-tempo numbers such as “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “You Took Advantage of Me.”

New York City Center’s Encores! series has done much to restore the work of these two to the repertoire, producing performances with original orchestrations of Babes in Arms (1937), Pal Joey (1940), and A Connecticut Yankee (1943 revival as the original 1927 version is lost). In 1997 Encores! staged The Boys from Syracuse. Always innovative, Rodgers and Hart decided to base the show on something that had not been done before: a play by William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Notoriously difficult to produce with two, count ’em, two sets of twins, The Boys from Syracuse (DRG) has been infrequently revived. It does however contain some of the team’s most wonderful songs. Rodgers was one of the 20th century’s waltz kings and all of his shows contain at least one example. In the present case we have “Falling in Love with Love” with its beguiling and soaring melody (along with a rather sardonic lyric in the context of the show) featuring the pure soprano of Rebecca Luker. You can also discover neglected ballads like “The Shortest Day of the Year,” sung by Malcolm Gets, and “You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea,” an emotional duet performed by the strong-voiced Davis Gaines and Sarah Uriarte Berry who also show their versatility with the rousing “This Can’t Be Love.” Comic relief is amply supplied by Mario Cantone as Dromio of Syracuse and Debbie Gravitte as the man-hungry Luce in their duet, “He and She,” with Gravitte later belting out “Oh, Diogenes (find a man who’s honest!)” A particular highlight of this recording is the trio “Sing for Your Supper” with its song styles from operetta to jazz and its bird imitations (performed here with its original Hugh Martin vocal arrangement).

 

When Rodgers and Hammerstein, now acting strictly as producers, decided to produce Annie Get Your Gun (1946/1966), they hired Jerome Kern to write the music, but when Kern suddenly died at the end of 1945, the job fell to Irving Berlin. This was an unusual choice as Berlin, who was famous as a songwriter par excellence, was not known for his book musicals, having composed mostly for revues and Hollywood films. The result was a show with more hit songs per square inch than any other and sent audiences from the theater happily humming the tunes of “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” “The Girl That I Marry,” “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” “They Say It’s Wonderful,” “I Got Lost in His Arms,” “I Got the Sun in the Morning,” “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” and the ultimate Broadway anthem, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” The show would also be one of star Ethel Merman’s biggest successes and she achieved the highly unusual feat of starring in her own revival twenty years after the original production.

Although the 1946 original cast recording (on Decca) is indispensible, capturing the great star at her peak and in fresh voice (as well as the later deleted song for the soubrettes, the delightful and bouncy “Who Do You Love, I Hope?”) the selections are quite truncated and the sound, despite sounding better than a transfer from 78s has a right to, is mono. So we turn to the 1966 Lincoln Center revival (RCA) that transferred to Broadway. Robert Russell Bennett updated his orchestrations from the original and Berlin even contributed his final published composition, “An Old Fashioned Wedding.” This recording finds Merman in still-amazing voice, belting out almost the entire score herself in her inimitable style. She’s aided by a particularly strong supporting cast, including Bruce Yarnell as Frank Butler and Jerry Orbach as Charlie Davenport. But it’s the Merm’s show all the way and she perfectly captures the sly humor in “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” and is surprisingly moving in “They Say It’s Wonderful.” The great overture (not on the 1946 album) is a plus, as is the huge orchestra and wonderful stereo sound.

One would think that the shows of such seminal writers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, whom some contend invented modern musical theater, would be well-served by recordings. But one would be wrong. As important as the Decca recordings of Oklahoma! and Carousel are (and everyone should own them) they can in no way be called “definitive.” For good stereo recordings of these seminal works, there are the cast recordings of the 1979 Broadway revival of Oklahoma! (RCA, conducted by 1943’s Jay Blackton who was then 70 years old and sounds like he’s in a hurry), and the cast album of the 1965 Lincoln Center production of Carousel (RCA, with its original 1945 lead, John Raitt).

Although many cuts and changes were made to accommodate playing time on the original release of South Pacific (1949), this is one of the first recordings we think of when we think of what original Broadway cast albums are, for here we have definitive performances that have never been bettered by its two stars, Mary Martin as naïve nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush and opera singer Ezio Pinza as French planter-with-a-past Emile de Becque. Their passion practically jumps off the recording and even though they almost never sing at the same time (it’s been said that Martin was worried about being compared to the operatically trained Pinza) this mismatched couple clutching each other while World War II rages around them makes the audience want the pair to be together. A strong supporting cast rounds out a magnificent recording. William Tabbert’s passionate “Younger Than Springtime” has never been equaled, nor has Juanita Hall’s transfixing “Bali Ha’i.”

South Pacific was recorded on both acetate discs and magnetic tape. The tapes were somehow not released on CD until 1988. That CD (Columbia 32604) is well worth seeking out. Besides being an important document, the atmosphere and ambiance of the sound is quite different from the familiar releases of the 78 sides. For a more complete recording in excellent sound, get the recent Lincoln Center Broadway revival from 2008 (Sony). This deluxe production features a large orchestra and includes the complete overture. Paulo Szot makes a sexy Emile and Kelli O’Hara, if lacking the quirkiness of the old-time Broadway divas, brings a grounded simplicity and wonder to Nellie. It still seems amazing that this was the very first Broadway revival of South Pacific.

Broadway Musicals from the Fifties
Along with Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser is one of the few Broadway composers to write his own lyrics. His Guys and Dolls (1950) is that rare musical that has both a perfect book (by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling) and score, Loesser’s lyrics flawlessly expressing the “Noo Yawk” gangster patois of the Damon Runyon stories on which the show is based. Although absent the overture and any dance music, the original Broadway cast album (Decca) is still the best representation of the show with the latest release remastered in clear mono sound and with the addition of bonus tracks from the soundtrack of the overblown 1955 film version that featured an enthusiastic Marlon Brando warbling “I’ll Know” with Jean Simmons. The hard-to-beat original Broadway cast features Robert Alda (Alan’s father) and Isabel Bigley as romantic leads Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown. Alda’s sonorous baritone makes you realize how wonderful classics such as “I’ll Know,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” and “Luck Be a Lady” must have sounded when they were new. Bigley’s soprano is more subdued, but her rendition of “If I Were a Bell” perfectly captures the intoxication of suddenly finding oneself in love. Other highlights include the hilarious “Adalaide’s Lament” performed by the irreplaceable Vivian Blaine (the only Broadway lead to make it into the film) and the rouser “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” belted to the skies by the great Stubby Kaye.

After Guys and Dolls, Loesser would go on to write his magnum opus, The Most Happy Fella (1956), given a deluxe, virtually complete 3-LP recording (now on two CDs) produced by Lieberson (Sony), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961), recorded in wide-separation stereo (RCA).

The great musical comedy star Gertrude Lawrence brought the idea of musicalizing Margaret Landon’s 1944 book Anna and the King of Siam, the true story of a British schoolteacher becoming governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam (now Thailand) in the 1860s, to Rodgers and Hammerstein. The King and I would become the team’s 1951 follow-up to South Pacific and would be Lawrence’s final show (she died while the original production was still running).

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

In a bit of casting thought to be unusual at the time, the role of the king went to newcomer Yul Brynner, who would go on to star in several revivals and tours and break all sorts of records, performing the role of the King over 4000 times.

 

Once again, the Decca original cast album sounds rushed, is truncated, and features Lawrence’s infamous approximation of pitch. It would take until the 1977 Broadway revival starring Brynner and Constance Towers for The King and I to get its definitive recording. But what a recording it is! Produced in superb sound by Thomas Z. Shepard with meticulous attention to detail and tempo by conductor Milton Rosenstock, yet maintaining a strong theatrical feel, this is one of the best cast albums ever. Brynner gets the chance to preserve complete performances of all of his numbers, Towers shines in the wistful “Hello, Young Lovers,” the charming “Getting to Know You” and “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” and gets to show her backbone in the angry “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” With a strong secondary couple, the tragic Lun Tha and Tuptim (Martin Vidnovic and June Angela, the latter sounding as if no note is too high) and enough dialogue to enhance the drama but not bore, this is hard to beat. Although the famous ballet “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” is not included, there is much recorded here for the first time, including the often cut “Western People Funny.”

The “Musical Arabian Night” Kismet (Sony), adapted by Robert Wright and George Forrest in 1953 using melodies by Alexander Borodin, never fails to delight. We finally get to hear the wonderful Alfred Drake (the original Curly from Oklahoma!) in decent, if mono, sound. Doretta Morrow (the original King and I Tuptim) shines in the standards “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” and “And This Is My Beloved.” Joan Diener (later the original Aldonza in Man of La Mancha) heroically belts out “Not Since Nineveh” with its Eydie Gormé climax. Also from La Mancha and due to become a huge Broadway star is Richard Kiley, surprisingly strong in the ultra-romantic duet with Morrow, “Stranger in Paradise.” There have been other more complete recordings, but this Goddard Lieberson-produced is the most exciting and theatrical.

The original cast album (Columbia/ Sony) of My Fair Lady (1956) is not only one of the biggest-selling cast recordings of one of the biggest hits (the original ran over 2700 performances) of all time, but also one of the best, completely capturing the magic of this wonderful musical. Having no love story and using the seemingly impossible-to-musicalize George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, composer Frederick Loewe and librettist and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner solved the problem not by turning Pygmalion into a musical but by inserting a musical into Pygmalion, retaining large portions of Shaw’s dialogue in the libretto, with a leading character, linguist Henry Higgins, whose role involves “speak-singing” more than actual singing. Yet this show also contains one of the most demanding singing roles ever in the transformation of “guttersnipe” Eliza Doolittle into a “lady.” Leads Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews are perfect here, and though the show was later re-recorded in stereo with Harrison and Andrews and the original London cast, the first recording remains the best, in spite of Lieberson’s usual tampering with endings and tempos.

After going to Hollywood to write the score for Gigi (1958), which would win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Lerner and Loewe returned to Broadway for 1960’s Camelot, a tale of King Arthur and the Round Table based on The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Once again, we have a male leading character not known for his singing ability, in this case Richard Burton as King Arthur, and once again we have the sweet-voiced Julie Andrews as his foil, Guenevere. Arthur’s rival for Guenevere’s affections is none other than newcomer Robert Goulet as Lancelot, whose single release of the show’s “If Ever I Would Leave You” launched his recording career. The wonderful cast album obscures the longeurs of Lerner’s libretto and is unique in offering not one, but two songs that were cut while the show was running!

A true landmark in every sense of the word, West Side Story (1957), with its book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim, and direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins, is also a landmark recording in Columbia’s early yet vibrant stereo sound. The exuberantly youthful cast has never been bettered and the recording has tremendous energy. Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence fully convey their discovery of newfound love in the “balcony scene” using nothing but their voices. Chita Rivera makes an earthy Anita and you can practically see her swishing her skirt as she belts out “America.”

Golden Age Broadway Musicals On Record

But WSS lost the Tony Award that year to The Music Man, a classic this-shouldn’t-work-but-it-does show with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Wilson. Wilson wanted to depict small-town life in Iowa as he remembered it (he even briefly played in John Philip Sousa’s band!) and he created a unique musical with its own language. Extremely difficult to stage with its many locations and lavish period costumes, The Music Man has rarely been revived (although always a high school and summer stock mainstay). But no matter, for here we have Robert Preston as the conniving “Professor” Harold Hill (another speak-singing leading character) dazzling the townspeople of River City with “Ya Got Trouble” and “Seventy-Six Trombones” as well as the insouciant “Marian the Librarian” and a surprisingly tender “Till There Was You.” His foil is the spectacular Barbara Cook as Marian, suspicious at first but finally succumbing. Her clear soprano in “My White Knight” is one of the highlights of the entire era. Add to this a full-throated chorus and even a barbershop quartet and you have one of the most entertaining show albums ever produced. The original stereo LP (Capitol) came with a warning that voices would move between the speakers. The first CD release of the show (Capitol 46633) retains this mix, which is fascinating to hear. Lie on the floor with your head between the speakers and recall how excited you were when you first heard stereo sound! In 1992, the recording was remixed with better sound and the voices centered (Angel 64663). Thankfully both retain the performances of the leads, with the young Barbara Cook singing like no one else.

After the success of their only “musical comedy” Flower Drum Song (1958), Rodgers and Hammerstein returned to the musical play with The Sound of Music (1959), OCR on Sony. It would become their last, as Oscar Hammerstein died soon after the show opened (his final lyric would be “Edelweiss”). It became one of the biggest successes of all involved and was, of course, made into the extremely popular film in 1965.

Based on the memoirs of “ecdysiast” Gypsy Rose Lee, a more proper name might have been Rose, for Gypsy (1959) is actually the story of Gypsy’s “stage mother,” Rose Hovick, and her desire for her two girls to succeed in show business. This was Ethel Merman’s triumphant return to Broadway after her one and only out-and-out flop in 1956, Happy Hunting. Herbie is none other than Jack Klugman in a rare musical appearance. Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics (to Jule Styne’s music) are among his best, wittily conveying character while propelling the plot forward. Although Merman wasn’t always well served by the recording industry, this can’t be said about Gypsy. The entire company performs the cast recording (Columbia/Sony) with electrifying verve, and the dazzling orchestra evokes venues from cheap vaudeville houses to lavish Broadway theaters. It grabs you from the beginning of the overture and holds you until the very (altered by Goddard Lieberson) end. This is one of those irreplaceable recordings in which everything comes together, the singers, the orchestra, and the orchestrations all contributing to one of the most exciting cast albums ever made.

Roger Grodsky is Professor of Musical Theater at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He’s conducted many shows and participated in performances, PBS broadcasts, and recordings (on Telarc) of the Cincinnati Pops. He’s also worked with the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization on restoring classic shows by Rodgers and Hart.

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