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| The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! | |
| Last Edit: bmc 06:15 pm EDT 07/17/18 | |
| Posted by: bmc 06:08 pm EDT 07/17/18 | |
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| I think I've read mixed reviews on this site but the new recording is just about perfect. I've listened to all but the original London recordings, and there's always something off (for me) with each. Billy or Nettie are past their prime, Billy is vocally weak, the ballet music isn't there; I didn't even like Barbara Ruick's Carrie(in the film).......But the five leads here are splendid, Joshua Henry's Soliloquy is, by me, the best on records...........I caint recall where I read it, but Stephen Sondheim said it while contrasting Cook and Streisand. He said something like, in FUNNY GIRL, Streisand acted the part perfectly, and then sang the songs perfectly, while in SHE LOVES ME, miss Cook acted the part While she was singing......That's what I heard in this recording. e.g.,. Mr snow is sometimes a pale character, but Mr Gemignani make him charming as hell. There's dance music for June, the Sailors dance and the Second Act Ballet...Helas, there's no "Geraniums in the Winder"(not kidding, I love that number) but you get a powerful rendition of "The Highest Judge of All" which is sometimes cut.......Sometimes if you've heard a cast album, even a new one can come across as a little bit stale, but here, they alternate some of the solo lines , Miss Fleming gets to do some extra singing.....It's just wonderful....I hope the show is still running when I show up for I MARRIED AN ANGEL next march | |
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| Orchestra and orchestration etc | |
| Posted by: young-walsingham 10:45 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! - bmc 06:08 pm EDT 07/17/18 | |
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| Has a new sound been created for this production or is it true to the original orchestration and dance music? Is the theatre orchestra augmented for the recording? I have looked at the Playbill on line and see lots of music credits but I would be grateful for opinions regarding this. | |
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| re: Orchestra and orchestration etc | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 11:01 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: Orchestra and orchestration etc - young-walsingham 10:45 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
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| The orchestrations are new. Sometimes they are fairly faithful to those by Walker and his associates, sometimes less so. Stylistically, they are generally appropriate. At least some of the dance arrangements are new and decidedly inferior to the originals. I haven't yet listened to the second-act ballet. I have very mixed feelings about the recording. Some very good singing actors are heard, but I'm unhappy with many of the musical choices. I mean both performance choices and the changes and cuts. Weirdest musical choice may be the decision to really obey the rest in the score between "real" and "nice" in "This Was a Real Nice Clambake." It's totally bizarre-sounding. And while the rest is in the score, Rodgers clearly didn't want it to be sung (as it is on the current recording) as: This was a real. Nice clambake. They do it like that every time. It sounds like two separate thoughts. Did no one involved here listen to the original cast recording? If Rodgers, a notorious stickler for having his music sung just as written, didn't have it performed that way in the original production, it seems clear he didn't want it that way, notwithstanding the rest in the score. Haven't seen the production, but I can't say that the recording makes me especially want to see it. |
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| re: Orchestra and orchestration etc | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:04 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Orchestra and orchestration etc - AlanScott 11:01 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
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| Alan, that is so interesting, what you wrote about "This was a real nice clambake." At the time of the New York Philharmonic concerts of CAROUSEL with Kelli O'Hara, Nathan Gunn, et al., someone in the ensemble told me they spent a lot of time in rehearsal trying to observe the rest in that phrase the way Rodgers intended it -- but, unless my memory is off or I misunderstood him, I thought he said the rest in question was between "clam" and "bake," not between "real" and "nice." Does the score have rests in both places? This hearkens back to an old ATC thread in which I took Carrie Underwood to task for singing "The hills are alive.....with the sound of music" in that unfortunate TV production of TSOM. Some people here immediately jumped on me and pointed out that there is a rest at that point in the score. I countered that neither Mary Martin nor Julie Andrews observe any kind of a rest at that point in the song. Perhaps Rodgers used these rests not because he wanted any sense of even a brief pause at those points, but just to help with enunciation -- so that, rather that having the singer elide the "v"sound at the end of "alive" with the "w" sound at the beginning of "with," Rodgers wanted crisper articulation of those consonants. Does this theory sound sensible to anyone? Because I can't think of any other reason to have rests in the places cited. |
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| re: Orchestra and orchestration etc | |
| Posted by: ashleylm 01:01 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Orchestra and orchestration etc - Michael_Portantiere 12:04 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
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| Don't know about the conductor's score, but the published vocal score score does have both a rest after "real" and a rest after "clam." (And again after "real" in "real good time.") | |
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| re: Orchestra and orchestration etc | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 01:42 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Orchestra and orchestration etc - ashleylm 01:01 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
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| Thanks! | |
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| re: The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 06:50 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! - bmc 06:08 pm EDT 07/17/18 | |
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| Not surprised. It's a beautifully sung, acted and danced production. Jacob Keith Watson was on as Enoch the night I saw it, and he was as strong as the rest of the cast. (Well, Amar Ramasar is no actor, but he makes up for that with spectacular dancing.) Just curious: Does the album include "Stonecutter's Cut It On Stone"? It is not performed in the show. |
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| re: The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! we need more studio cast records a la John McGlinn and others | |
| Last Edit: bmc 02:32 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
| Posted by: bmc 02:21 pm EDT 07/18/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The new CAROUSEL recording..Glorious! - TheOtherOne 06:50 am EDT 07/18/18 | |
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| no stonecutters or geraniums. June is bustin is missing Carrie;s "Get away you no-account nothins" that usually opens that number, but the are a couple of orchestral segues between songs, that I've not heard on recordings before.......Miss Mendez won a tony for her Carrie as did Audra, -other fine Carries on disc include Susan Watson.,Florence Henderson, Sarah Brightman. As Barbara Cook once said, I've played Julia and Carrie, but Carrie is more fun. ........Re Alan Scott's(Hello Alan) comment on orchestrationas, If I ruled the World , there would be studio cast discs of all the Kern, Rodgers Cole porter shows, with orig Orchestrations, etc. John McGlinn did a fine job, but I don't think he always had final say on what to record. His Kurt Weill cd had big chunks of LOVE LIFE and FIREBRAND OF FLORENCE, and a broadway showstopppers disc had 4 songs from SWEET ADELINE> I had the feeling he would have liked to record those entire scores......New Worlds records recently came out with a complete recording of Roberta, John Yap soldiers on, PS CLASSY and others, but at age68 I dont think I'll ever get to hear them all...Ah, well. | |
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