I adore THOSE LIPS, THOSE EYES! I do not know for certain if that’s Langella singing, but I rather suspect it was. He would go on to do at least one musical, the 1991 Houston Opera MY FAIR LADY. I was there. It was the most sexually charged MFL I’ve ever seen, and until the final scene, it was all done with movement, intonation, and looks (those eyes, indeed). And then we got to “Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?” and Langella leaped out of his chair, swung his Eliza (Lee Merrill) around, and it ended in a clinch.
The theatre historian in me screamed, “but that’s NOT in Alan Jay Lerner’s stage directions!”
The red-blooded woman in me said, “Shut up! I’m swooning!”
Maybe I wouldn’t have accepted such an ending if they hadn’t clearly implied there was a physical attraction between the leads right from the start, but they did. Then again, it was Frank Langella. (swoons again at nearly 30 year old memory...)
And yes, he sang quite nicely.
Laura |
