| re: they have to make money | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 09:27 pm EDT 05/17/18 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:27 pm EDT 05/17/18 | |
| In reply to: re: they have to make money - Chazwaza 07:33 pm EDT 05/17/18 | |
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| I should start by saying that I'm not one of the greatest fans of KMK. Still . . . You wrote, "And I think you'd be hard pressed to find a majority of people who consider Kiss Me Kate to be one of the greats in terms of the greatest musicals." From what basic pool of people would we be choosing those who would vote on this? You wrote, "I wouldn't even consider it one of the greats of the "classics" era... it really depends on how long your list is. And while it may or may not be a better score than Anything Goes (in terms of existing in the play), AG is much more beloved and remembered song for song." I don't think particularly think so, although if you're thinking of the revisions of AG with their interpolations of popular Porter songs from other shows, maybe then, but even then maybe not. I say that not to put down AG, which I think is terrific (especially in its original version, very rarely seen for decades, which has a remarkably funny book as well as dazzling orchestrations far superior to those heard in the revisions). Anyway, I'll just point out a few things: Kiss Me, Kate was the second book musical to run more than 1,000 performances on Broadway, although admittedly South Pacific, the third, came along later in the same season. The original reviews were the kinds of raves that come along rarely, and for decades thereafter it was one of the most popular shows in the rep. When the BBC decided to start BBC2 in 1964, a new television production of Kiss Me, Kate was chosen to attract audiences on the first night of the new station. In 1958, Capitol made a new recording of KMK in stereo featuring the four original leads, the only such example I can think of in the history of cast recordings. MFL is not really comparable as that was a cast recording of the London production, and it was only three years after the Broadway production opened, while MFL was still running strong on Broadway and on its North American tour. But KMK was still huge. In 1962, lines of dialogue heard on the KMK OBCR were quoted in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on the clear assumption that just about everyone would know what was being quoted. In 1972, Lehman Engel in his book Words With Music chose KMK as one of only 12 musicals that he thought would last. In addition to the 1964 BBC2 production, KMK received major U.S. television productions in 1958 and 1968. Unless I'm forgetting something, it was the first older musical to receive two virtually complete recordings on two CDs of the original score, even if it neither was perhaps quite truly complete (not sure about that) nor truly represented the score as originally heard on Broadway (perhaps because it was not realized at the time how many changes were made in the licensed version from what was heard on opening night on Broadway, but even if it was realized, at the time those original materials were not easily available). We still don't have a single comparable recording of Oklahoma!, Carousel, Fiddler on the Roof and I don't know how many other classics, but we have two of KMK. (Admittedly, this is not necessarily because no one has wanted to do or has tried to do such recordings of the scores for the three shows I mentioned. McGlinn and EMI were going to do an Oklahoma! until McGlinn managed to scuttle it thanks to his unfailingly gracious personality.) It is one of the few Broadway musicals to have been published with a full orchestral score in an annotated critical edition, not to mention with variant versions of several of the same numbers. |
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