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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 28, 2017 19:31:23 GMT
Yes, Dawnstar, some of them are less than admirable characters. But poor old Des Grieux gets led a merry dance by Manon Lescaut and presumably dies in the desert in the USA after Manon dies and, as you say, Cavaradossi comes to a nasty end although Tosca thinks she has saved him. And what about Dick Johnson in Fanciulla: he's a bad 'un through and through as well! Perhaps it's best just to concentrate on the music and the singing at the opera and not worry too much about the characters. That's what I'm going to do at Aida tomorrow night. Just so long as we have six decent singers and a good conductor I will be happy! This has taken us rather a long way from Nellie Forbush but it's been an interesting journey! I'd forgotten about Des Grieux, never having seen Manon Lescaut. Okay, I'll give him an exemption as well as Cavaradossi. I am suddenly reminded of a G & S discussion group, which I intermittantly lurk on, & a discussion there years ago where someone argued that all of Gilbert's tenor characters were the real villains of their respective operettas! |
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Post by Tibidabo on Sept 28, 2017 20:50:53 GMT
My current avatar is me tinkling in the lounge bar of a hotel in Sydney about 60 years ago. , if I were 30 years younger......  |
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 28, 2017 22:53:16 GMT
I'd forgotten about Des Grieux, never having seen Manon Lescaut. Okay, I'll give him an exemption as well as Cavaradossi. I am suddenly reminded of a G & S discussion group, which I intermittantly lurk on, & a discussion there years ago where someone argued that all of Gilbert's tenor characters were the real villains of their respective operettas! Oh, that's a curly one! I'll have to give it some thought. I can see immediately that Nanki Poo has run away to avoid the advances of Katisha, and the defendant in Trial by Jury is definitely a cad but I'll have to think about the tenors in the other operas. |
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 29, 2017 13:54:48 GMT
G&S tenor villains:
Trial by Jury: The defendant. Definitely a villain.
HMS Pinafore: Ralph Rackstraw. A victim of the usual baby mix-up. Why a villain?
Pirates of Penzance: Frederick. Yes, he throws over Ruth for a younger model, so he is a villain.
Patience: No real tenor lead.
The Sorcerer: Akexis. Yes, his bright idea about the love elixir causes no end of problems, so a silly ass if not a villain.
Iolanthe: Earl Tolloller. Smallish role. Why a villain?
Mikado: Nanki Poo. Yes for running away from Katisha.
Gondoliers: Marco. Why is he a villain?
Ruddigore: Richard Dauntless. Courts Rose, his brother's intended, but eventually gives her back to his brother so a reformed villain?
Princess Ida: Hilarian. Disguises himself as a woman to deceive Princess Ida, so probably a villain of sorts.
Yeomen of the Guard: Colonel Fairfax. Definitely a villain for taking Elsie away from Jack Point.
I will not bother with Utopia or the Grand Duke.
So, Dawnstar, can you elucidate or at least elaborate on the above?
TL
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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 29, 2017 18:52:07 GMT
tonyloco I refer you to www.gsarchive.net/mikado/discussion/5.html#5.2 www.gsarchive.net/sorcerer/discussion/general.html#5.1 www.gsarchive.net/yeomen/discussion/fairfax.html etc. As I said, it's discussions that I've read, not my personal opinions. I was perhaps over-generalising as I'm not sure every single tenor is argued to be potentially villainous in the discussions. I've seen Nanki Poo played both as an idiot & as a schemer so a lot is down to interpretation. My personal beef with Fairfax is not him taking Elsie away from Point but him putting her through a load of unneccesary anguish in Act 2 before revealing that the man she loves & the man she married are actually the same person. The main arguement for Alexis as villain seems to be that he makes Wells die rather than taking responasibility & dying himself. As for Marco, some people seem to really hate Take A Pair Of Sparkling Eyes!
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Post by tmesis on Sept 29, 2017 19:37:08 GMT
Jimmy Van Heusen
I like the fact his real name is Edward Chester Babcock but he nicked his name from the shirt manufacturer.
After the Great 5 this is the guy I admire the most and he gets little attention. I find his songs almost the most satisfying of all to play on the piano, probably even more than Kern. His harmonies are exquisite and subtle with great use of 7ths and 9ths. He had a great understanding of a song's structure and effortless ability to modulate.
Highlights: (with some favourite versions)
All the way
Call me irresponsible (Bobby Darrin)
Love is the tender trap
But beautiful (Maria Ewing and R.R. Bennett)
Here's that rainy day (Kings Singers arr. R. R. Bennett)
Imagination (Ella)
Like Someone in Love (Chet Baker)
Polka dots and Moonbeams (John Pizzarelli)
I thought about you (Sinatra or Pizzarelli)
My Kind of town (Sinatra)
Come fly with me (Sinatra with amazing Billy May arrangement.)
Many of his songs were written especially for Sinatra and occasionally the words are a bit toe-curling as in Polkadots by Burke (but what an exquisite tune) and I don't like him when he is more out and out commercial as in High Hopes and Love and Marriage. At his very considerable best, he can more than hold his own with, and sometimes surpass, the Great 5.
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 29, 2017 21:31:40 GMT
tonyloco I refer you to www.gsarchive.net/mikado/discussion/5.html#5.2 www.gsarchive.net/sorcerer/discussion/general.html#5.1 www.gsarchive.net/yeomen/discussion/fairfax.html etc. As I said, it's discussions that I've read, not my personal opinions. I was perhaps over-generalising as I'm not sure every single tenor is argued to be potentially villainous in the discussions. I've seen Nanki Poo played both as an idiot & as a schemer so a lot is down to interpretation. My personal beef with Fairfax is not him taking Elsie away from Point but him putting her through a load of unneccesary anguish in Act 2 before revealing that the man she loves & the man she married are actually the same person. The main arguement for Alexis as villain seems to be that he makes Wells die rather than taking responasibility & dying himself. As for Marco, some people seem to really hate Take A Pair Of Sparkling Eyes! Thanks for that info about the villainous G&S tenors. It seems a bit unfair for people to condemn a character because they don't like his big number! In Australia there was a very popular meat pie made by Sargent's, which was about seven inches in diameter and quite shallow, and the parody version of 'Take a pair of sparkling eyes' went: Take a pair of Sargent's pies And slap 'em between your thighs. That would presumably satisfy anybody who disliked the original version! |
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 29, 2017 22:56:56 GMT
Jimmy van Heusen
Ah now tmesis, those are great songs by Jimmy van Heusen (I didn't know the story about his name) but for me personally they are all rather too classy. I can see their merit but I think 'Love is the Tender trap' is probably the only one that I ever played and possibly 'All the way'.* I think my next choice after the big five would probably be Harold Arlen and looking at his songs on Wikipedia, I can see that I can play most of them by heart, and often used to do so. Here's a list:
Somewhere over the rainbow
Stormy Weather
The man that got away
Let's fall in love
Blues in the night
It's only a paper moon
I've got the world on a string
Get Happy
Happiness is a thing called Joe
Accentuate the positive
That old black magic
I gotta right to sing the blues
Another Arlen song that I really like is Groucho Marks's comedy number 'Lydia the Tattooed Lady' and I can remember one Sunday Night Variety Show at Stratford East when Barry Cryer said he would like to sing it and I had a confrontation with the other pianist who happened to be there that night as he wanted to do it as well, but I pulled rank so got to play it!
*I've just checked Jimmy van Heusen and I find that I often played 'Moonlight becomes you' and 'Swingin' on a star', but the latter is one of his commercial titles!
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Post by tmesis on Sept 30, 2017 10:44:43 GMT
Yes tonyloco I'm very evangelical about Van Heusen.* Luckily I have a ready made flock to indoctrinate, namely my piano, clarinet and saxophone pupils. I actually prefer teaching his music to my clarinet and saxophone pupils and then I can accompany them on what Julian (or was it Sandy?) called the 'strillers bona' and wallow in his fabulous harmonies, whilst throwing out comments like, 'your C# is not in tune!'** I'm still a massive Arlen fan, though, and really enjoy playing, and teaching, nearly all the songs you mention. * so was R. Rodney. Bennett. ** it's always C# that's out of tune with amateur saxophonists |
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 30, 2017 12:46:32 GMT
Yes, tmesis, I can understand your devotion to Van Heusen. Although I was never aware of who wrote many of the songs I used to play regularly, it always gave me a special pleasure to play 'Moonlight becomes you' because of the subtle shifts of harmonies and elegant shape of the melody. I should explain that many of the songs I played were learned by ear and I'm fairly sure that 'Moonlight becomes you' was taken into my brain at the age of about six or seven when I saw Bing Crosby singing it to Dorothy Lamour in the 1942 movie 'Road to Morocco'. As I have boasted before, I was very precocious when it came to picking up songs to play on the piano with one finger. I doubt that I have ever seen the sheet music of this particular song but when I later learned chords and harmonies at the Shefte College of Music, I was then able to flesh out my repertoire of tunes with what sounded to me as the appropriate harmonies and I always appreciated that 'Moonlight becomes you' was a superior kind of composition!
So having added Jimmy van Heusen and Harold Arlen to the big five, do you have any further names to put forward, maybe even for just one or two memorable songs? Of course we haven't analysed the music of the other major composers of musicals like Lerner and Loewe, Kander and Ebb, De Sylva, Brown & Henderson, Vincent Youmans, Frank Loesser, Jule Styne, Meredith Willson, Jerry Herman, Adler and Ross, and the others who also contributed some outstanding songs to the GAS, and the tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood like Fred Fisher, Arthur Freed, Harry Warren, Isham Jones, Walter Donaldson, Leo Robin, Joseph Howard, etc, etc. In fact, the big parade, goes on for years, to quote Al Dubin in his lyric for '42nd Street'.
Maybe we should leave it at that, unless you have further comments you would like to make.
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Post by Mr Snow on Oct 1, 2017 17:03:51 GMT
Please don't stop, I'll get withdrawal symptoms!
J van Heusen is an inspired choice. One broadcaster on musicals I really enjoyed was the Canadian Robert Cushman and his series Book, Music and Lyrics. I recall him saying that while Sinatra was one of the very finest interpreters of the American Songbook, he wasn't sure he ever been the first performer of one?
If I can make a request I'd love to hear your views on Frank Loesser. For showbiz panash, inventiveness and the way he seemed the last hurrah of the golden age I'd nominate him as next on the list.
Ps BBC2 are showing Hans Christian Andersen this Sat. Havnt seen it in years.
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 1, 2017 18:08:47 GMT
If I can make a request I'd love to hear your views on Frank Loesser. For showbiz panash, inventiveness and the way he seemed the last hurrah of the golden age I'd nominate him as next on the list. I look forward to tmesis's considered and informative list of Loesser's best songs relative to their place in the Great American Songbook. I will kick off with my usual personal reminiscences about the music of Loesser. Firstly, it was a matter of great regret that Guys and Dolls was not produced in Australia when it was first written, but I had the OBC LP and a copy of the vocal score and it seems as if at one time or another I have accompanied people performing almost every song. One of my regular Aussie ladies used to do a whole gallery of character songs from musicals and Adelaide's Lament was part of her act. On one occasion she got a booking at an RSL Club (drinking clubs going under the impressive name of Returned and Services League Clubs) and as there was no piano there I borrowed a full-sized piano-accordion and bluffed my way through the act. We got paid so it couldn't have been too bad! Also, in 1962 or 1963 I played for the Christmas staff show at EMI and as EMI was presenting How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying at the Shaftesbury Theatre we used many of the songs in our show. I can recall that I played the entire show my memory and had nary a scrap of music at the piano. I have also recently posted that for the opening performance of 'The Most Happy Fella' I stood at the back of the Balcony at the Coliseum and it was a darn sight better that the ENO Aida the other night. Checking the list of Loesser songs on Wiki and elsewhere I find that in a lot of cases he provided the lyrics to tunes by composers like Jule Styne and Hoagy Carmichael. So perhaps tmesis can clarify which of the songs from films and elsewhere apart from Broadway musicals are composed by Loesser and which ones belong in the GAS. |
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Post by tmesis on Oct 1, 2017 20:32:16 GMT
There really isn't a single duff song in Guys and Dolls. It's a difficult one to call but for me it's a toss up between this and My Fair Lady for accolade of Most Perfect Musical. I'm a huge Mozart fan and there is an economy of means and a fastidiousness of expression that makes me think of Wolfgang, definitely it's the 'art that conceals art.'
Because all the songs are so perfect I'm struggling with favourites so instead a few observations:
Fugue for tin horns - really is a mini-fugue!
If I were a bell - very enjoyable to play starting with a very satisfying 9th chord
I've never been in love - probably Loessers best ballad, the sweep of the tune with those uncharacteristically wide intervals gets to me every time.
Sit down your rocking' the boat - the ultimate show-stopper and I submit to it as readily as anyone else, but I can never fathom quite why it has such a joyous effect on audiences!
The original NT production will take some beating; Bob Hoskins, Julia McKenzie, Ian Charleston and Julie Covington were a sensational cast. It was only marred by some 'updated' orchestrations that now sound almost laughably anachronistic. It was then nearly as good when it returned to NT with an almost unknown Imelda Staunton as Miss Adelaide. I also enjoyed the Chichester production, chiefly because of the excellent Jamie Parker as Sky.
I enjoyed the recent production of 'How to succeed' at Wiltons. It wasn't perfect but there are some great songs (The brotherhood of Man and the difficult to pull off I believe in you.)
Two of my favourites that are lyrics only:
I hear Music (B.Lane)
Two Sleepy People (H. Carmichael)
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Post by tmesis on Oct 1, 2017 21:02:05 GMT
J van Heusen is an inspired choice. One broadcaster on musicals I really enjoyed was the Canadian Robert Cushman and his series Book, Music and Lyrics. Yes this was very good. Also Edward Seckerson's Radio 3 Monday afternoon series on musicals was fantastic (he also did an excellent pre-prom talk on Oklahoma!) |
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 1, 2017 21:29:14 GMT
There really isn't a single duff song in Guys and Dolls. It's a difficult one to call but for me it's a toss up between this and My Fair Lady for accolade of Most Perfect Musical. I totally agree, tmesis, and it was a statement that I was always ready to throw into any discussion on musicals, namely that 'Guys and Dolls' and 'My Fair Lady' are the two benchmarks for Best Musical, mainly because not only is every song in both shows a corker, but they all fit the plots perfectly. A song that I have a special fondness for is 'I don't want to walk without you' which has music by Jule Styne and words by Loesser. It's 1942, so again must have seeped into my subconscious when I was about six years old. Going off on a diversion, two other songs from that era that I really liked are 'Down Argentine Way' (Harry Warren and Mack Gordon from 1941), 'Tangerine' (Victor Scherzinger and Johnny Mercer from 1942) and 'I don't want to set the world on fire' (also 1941 but the writers are given as Eddie Dunham, Eddie Seiler, Sol Marcus and Bennie Benjamin). Coming back to Loesser, another old favourite Loesser song (words and music) was 'I wish I didn't love you so' from the 1947 Betty Hutton movie 'The Perils of Pauline. Good gracious, here's another 1941 song by Scherzinger and Loesser 'Sand in my shoes' which is a kind of sub-Latin 'Begin the Beguine'. I think maybe I had 78s of some of these songs – yes, I had a collection of pop 78s when I was seven or so! SIMS was Connie Boswell and I definitely had DAW on an Australian Regal-Zonophone but I can't find it in any of my reference books. Coming back to Loesser's stage works, I remember enjoying 'Where's Charley?' in Regent's Park and of course 'Once in love with Amy' is one of those songs that gets into your brain and stays there! I wonder whether Loesser wrote 'Sit down you're rockin' the boat' specifically for Stubby Kaye and maybe was inspired by him? Same for 'Standing on the corner' and 'Big D' from 'Most Happy Fella' |
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Post by tmesis on Oct 1, 2017 22:25:17 GMT
Sand in my shoes - I seen to remember a lovely instrumental version by George Shearing
Once in love with Amy - I'd forgotten about this excellent song , love Mel Torme's version with the Marty Paich Dektette
Also forgot to mention 'Baby it's cold outside' an almost Berlinesque duet.
(I love Tangerine!)
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Post by harrietcraig on Oct 2, 2017 2:41:38 GMT
Another Loesser favorite (words and music) is "Spring will be a little late this year", from the 1944 movie, "Christmas Holiday".
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 2, 2017 9:43:04 GMT
Another Loesser favorite (words and music) is "Spring will be a little late this year", from the 1944 movie, "Christmas Holiday". Hello harrietcraig and welcome to this rather esoteric discussion! "Spring will be a little late this year" is a song I really only know by the title, but I just checked the Deanna Durbin version on YouTube and I can understand why it has been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Jeri Southern among others. It's a lovely song, if a trifle sad and melancholy. Interesting that Deanna Durbin sang it originally, but in addition to her normal 'classical' soprano repertoire she was not averse to widening the field with 'Largo al factotum' and 'Nessun dorma' amongst others so she was a game girl when it came to trying anything on offer. |
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 2, 2017 10:29:02 GMT
Also forgot to mention 'Baby it's cold outside' an almost Berlinesque duet. (I love Tangerine!) Two comments: 'Baby it's cold outside' turned into something of a nightmare for me in that we decided to do it in one of the adult pantomimes at the Pindar of Wakefield but although the two performers concerned were extremely accomplished in most of what they did, they simply couldn't learn their individual parts so in the dozen or so performances of the pantomime I had to bring all my skill at accompanying to bear to rescue them when they continued to go wrong and come in at the wrong time. They were both comic actors so they made fun of the mistakes but it was no fun for me trying to hold it together, time after time! Regarding 'Tangerine' I was always puzzled by the two alternative versions of the lyrics at the end of the song which are something like: 'Yes she has them all on the run, But her heart belongs to just one. Her heart belongs to Tangerine' 'Yes she has them all on the run, But she's only fooling just one. She's only fooling Tangerine.' Never mind, it's not important. More important is the different lyric sung in the film earlier: 'And I've seen, times when Tangerine, Had the bourgeoise believing she was queen.' Wiki says the changed lyric appeared on the commercial recording with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra and singers Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberly. I find all this trivia/minutiae fascinating. |
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Post by Mr Snow on Oct 2, 2017 14:22:58 GMT
Re: Sit Down…. I believe that ‘nearly’ all the songs we love about Guys and Dolls were written in a manic spate of creativity and only then did they cast about for someone to write a book. Step in George Abbott and the rest is…. i.e. unlikely that any casting would have been considered at composition time, but its a lovely idea. (NB a couple were written for the film). I have his daughter’s book and will try and look it up.
RE Baby it’s Cold Outside. This was written as a piece for Loesser and his second wife to perform at parties. He was very commercially astute, so no doubt it would have been recorded at some point, but it wasn’t rushed to the studios.
Similarly, I also believe that Let’s Do It and You’re the Top were songs that Porter liked to play to his tony friends. The legend is that he played them to Rogers and Hart at a party in a Venetian Palazzo and they were so impressed they told him they were good enough that he could sell them to Broadway. (Just checked Wiki and apparently, he’d already had some songs interpolated into shows – but it’s a good story…) But I’m sure you two knew that…
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2017 15:05:38 GMT
I really must get around to booking Guys and Dolls in Manchester. Find myself curious what they'll do with orchestrations.
And for the purposes of this discussion, I'd highlight 'More I Cannot Wish You' and 'Marry the Man Today'. They're possibly easy to overlook alongside the likes of 'Luck be a Lady' and 'The Oldest Established', but are nonetheless exceptionally fine songs. You can really fell the love in the first, and 'Marry the Man' is a very satisfying end to the show (the story is still moving forward a bit even at this point), just so full of character and humour, with lovely escalating harmonies at the end - "and change his ways, and change his ways, and change his ways, and change his ways, and change his ways".
Recordings wise, I tend towards the Bob Hoskins and Nathan Lane versions. Obviously, a lot of the music from the show has taken a life of its own on outside the theatre, which is always nice - saw Loudon Wainwright break out 'More I Cannot Wish You' a few years back when he was sharing a bill with Rufus at the ROH.
From elsewhere in the Loesser catalogue, 'Inchworm' stands out. It's one of those songs that really feels it's just existed since the dawn of time - you're almost surprised to learn an actual person sat down and wrote it. And being passed down early to new generations, is a song I'd wager good money will still be heard a hundred years down the line. There's a lovely Mandy Patinkin recording on his Kidults LP.
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Post by Mr Snow on Oct 2, 2017 17:24:20 GMT
I agree you could pick them all. I also love Adelaide/When I think of the Times... which I think was written for the film.
But I treasure the Original Cast recording with
Robert Alda (Alan's Dad), Vivian Blaine, Sam Levene (as a pretty rough Nathan Detroit) and a young Stubby Kaye.
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 2, 2017 19:04:49 GMT
Talking of films: 'Sue me' was in the original stage version of Guys and Dolls. Wiki says that the new songs in the film were' Adelaide', 'Pet me poppa' and 'A woman in love' and of course quite a few of the stage songs were dropped.
Also on films, 'Baby it's cold outside' first appeared commercially in the film 'Neptune's Daughter' with Esther Williams and Riccardo Montalban and they released a recording of it. The song won the Academy Award in 1949 for best new movie song.
On Guys and Dolls, I really enjoyed the 2005 London production, actually more than the original NT version, partly because I hated the NT orchestrations. The orchestra sounded fab in the 2005 version and I saw it several times from the front row of the stalls, partly because of cast changes but mainly just to enjoy the orchestra.
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Post by tmesis on Oct 3, 2017 7:13:51 GMT
Lerner and Loewe
I want first to give a big shout-out to Loewe. Many books and articles have been written about Lerner, quite rightly; he is an outstanding lyricist (although Sondheim doesn't think so.) Loewe has been largely ignored. He was a superb melodist, able to completely hold his own with Rodgers in quality, if not quantity. His harmonies are very subtle and he used many different structures for his songs, not just the standard 32 bars. He could also encompass many different musical styles, the best example of this being
My Fair Lady
As said elsewhere this perfect musical is difficult to write about because everything about it is so good! but...
- I love how Loewe had the effortless ability to switch from Music Hall parody - I'm getting married, to ballad - On the Street, to classical pastiche - The Ascot Gavotte.
- On the street - one of the best ballads ever with an almost operatic range and big expressive intervals.
- I could have Danced - I find this song utterly delicious and melodically unique with rushing, impetuous upward phrases. The are some ravishing woodwind touches in the RRB arrangement (what a huge debt the classic musical owes to this unassuming man.)
- You did it - I love the structure of this and Lerner uses one of my favourite rhymes: 'ruder pest/Budapest'
- I've grown accustomed to her face - this song ends the musical in the most understated but poignant way, with some sterling help from RRB's glorious string arrangement.
The NT production was good, I went twice and failed to see Martine on both occasions! Even better was John Wilson's Proms version which the BBC never televised!
I don't have time to do all their other musicals full justice but:
Brigadoon
As said elsewhere this has the outstanding Heather on the Hill, vying with Rodger's It might as well be Spring as my favourite song from a musical. I'm surprised the song hasn't been more often recorded out of context. Also the fabulous Almost like being in Love which has one of my favourite 'easing back into the home key after the middle 8 moments' worthy of Kern.
Gigi
I love the title song - great sweep to the melody and clever key changes
I remember it well - the Gingold/Chevalier performance is perfection
The night they invented champagne - Loewe was excellent at frothy (sorry) melodies a bit like Offenbach.
Camelot
I think this is ripe for revival. The NT (Olivier) could do it full justice. They ought to consider it after the critical acclaim of Follies but I can't see it happening! It has a super score: Camelot, I wonder what the King, The simple joys of Maidenhood, What do simple folk do, If ever I would leave you, How to Handle a Woman. The latter is given a superb, touching performance by Richard Burton on the Broadway cast recording. What a shame he didn't do more musicals. He has a really attractive light baritone. The recording also has the peerless Julie Andrews.
Paint your Wagon also has some great songs but I have to stop to earn a crust...
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Post by tonyloco on Oct 3, 2017 13:53:14 GMT
Thanks tmesis for your usual comprehensive canter through the works of Lerner and Loewe.
I don't know anything about their early stage shows ('Life of the Party' and 'What's Up') but from Brigadoon onwards it is a small but superb collection of wonderful musicals.
So here are my personal recollections about the shows and the songs.
I don't remember much about it, but I saw and greatly enjoyed the Lost Musicals performance of 'The Day Before Spring', but with its 'modern' story setting I expect it would work best in a medium-sized theatre rather than a big house like Drury Lane. My diary note says I was hooked from the opening scene and almost in tears at the end. Sounds like it might be worth re-visiting by the Donmar or the Meunier, if it hasn't already! None of the songs have had any life outside the show, possibly because they are all integrated into the action rather than being stand-alone songs.
I saw 'Brigadoon' and 'Paint Your Wagon' in the original Australian productions in the 1950s and loved both of them. From 'Brigadoon', my jazz singer friend, the late Maxine Daniels always started her set with 'Almost Like Being in Love' and I have noticed other older ladies in their shows at places like Pizza on the Park also favoured it in their programmes. I enjoy its forward drive and the whole song seems short but very sweet! The title song in 'Paint Your Wagon' also contains a musical phrase that sounds exactly like a phrase in Act I of Puccini's 'Tosca' but I don't recall Ricordi suing Lerner and Loewe, although they did successfully sue the writers of 'Avalon' because they said the melody was lifted from 'E lucevan le stelle', which I personally don't think it is. But I digress, as usual!
I saw the original West End production of 'My Fair Lady' at Drury Lane in 1960 with Anne Rogers but the 1958 production by then already seemed rather tired. I also saw the 1979 revival at the Adelphi with Liz Robertson, directed by Alan J Lerner, whom Robertson later married. I last saw it in 2002 at Drury Lane when I was lucky enough to catch Martine McCutcheon in one of her rare performances – she was very good! 'I could have danced all night' was always a staple in my cocktail piano repertoire, but 'On the street where you live' is a bugger to play by ear because the harmonic progression that ends the middle section does not fit any normal chords, at least not that I have ever been able to figure, and you just have to play the exact notes Loewe wrote to make it sound right, something that I have to fake with only varying degrees of success!
'Gigi' is wonderful as a film but I didn't care for the stage adaption in Regent's Park, which I left after half-an-hour when a rain shower conveniently interrupted the performance. Topol was rather creepy in the Maurice Chevalier role (his 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls' smacked of paedophilia) and Millicent Martin was also a major disappointment as Mamita. I didn't like the orchestrations so cut my losses and went home when the rain started.
Now to 'Camelot'. I saw the original West End Production and also the Australian one, both in the mid 1960s, and felt that neither one was entirely satisfactory. It seemed to me to be a bit like 'Mack and Mabel' being a show on an interesting subject with a wonderful score but somehow it fails to hit the spot, even with wonderful performers. I goaded Ian Talbot into producing it in Regent's Park and I enjoyed it more, even though there had been some rather strange tinkering with the dramatic structure at the start of Act II. But, as the theatremonkey says, it still didn't really work. Perhaps a John Wilson concert (unstaged) would at least do the score justice.
I remember that in the EMI staff show I referred to earlier under Loesser, we did a parody of 'How to handle a woman' as 'How to handle an artist' with some pointed references to the EMI producer Norman Newell and the artists he recorded, and Norman, sitting in the front row, roared with laughter. We also did a parody of 'I wonder what the King is doing tonight' about some of the other company executives. I don't remember the details, but the audience certainly enjoyed it even if the bosses didn't!
I realise that my comments are more about the shows themselves rather than the songs, but I think we can take it that L & L have provided a particularly rich assortment of songs for the American Songbook from a surprisingly small number of top class musicals.
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