Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.74 You Save: $9.24 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.62 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: David Hyde Pierce does Sherlock Holmes in a musical.
Hit: 3 Stars
The show which spawned the OBC album was no "Producers", in fact it reminded me a lot of an old show "Crazy For You". The music was pleasant and one of the cast members has a wonderful tenor voice. Other than that the score is forgetable.Free Music Review: Pretty good Kander and Ebb
Hit: 3 Stars
I thought the score was pretty good, but not great. A problem seems to be having songs for a "lackluster" show within a show (Robbin Hood). The PRODUCERS did it much better. Still and all it's nice to have a traditional Broadway score.Free Music Review: Good cast, bland score...
Hit: 2 Stars
The cast recording of "Curtains" features a score by John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (with additional material by Rupert Holmes) that is just too bland-- especially given the songwriting team's track record. Tony-winner David Hyde Pierce and a gathering of Broadway pros perform admirably on disc and the orchestra is lively, but most of the tracks had me bored within about thirty seconds. The story involves a murder mystery behind the scenes of a terrible musical and the investigation by a show business-loving detective (Pierce), whose love of theater gets in the way of solving the crime. It's a promising premise with a good enough cast that might make this one of those musicals that's still enjoyable without having a distinguished score. "Curtains" is obviously a throwback to old fashioned musical comedies (in keeping with the 1950's setting), but even as nostalgia, the recording doesn't offer a whole lot. The songs for the musical-within-the musical are intentionally dopey, and therefore pretty tedious on disc. There are bits here and there that work okay-- particularly when some cynical humor breaks through. I liked "The Woman's Dead," in which the cast of the show-within-a show use the occasion of the star's unexpected death to engage in an impromptu "acting exercise." But the darker bits really only made me want to listen to edgier Kander and Ebb fare, like "Chicago" or "Kiss of the Spider Woman."Free Music Review: A sad finale
Hit: 2 Stars
I was surprised to read the glowing reviews for this recording. I love Kander and Ebb, including "The Rink" and "Steel Pier," both of which I consider underrated. But "Curtains" is second-rate and would never have made it to Broadway without the Kander-Ebb names on it. Hyde-Pierce is charming, though Esparza deserved the Tony for his electrifying performance in "Company." Monk is unappealing throughout. Not a star. And poor Karen Ziemba, a real talent,is wasted. There is one good ballad and the Show People number which is catchy, but the rest of the score ranges from ordinary to embarrassing. The book is thin and the choreography is awful. We'd all like to remember Kander and Ebb's last show as an artistic success, but let' not deceive ourselves. This should never have come to Broadway.Free Music Review: DRAW THE CURTAINS. THE FLOW AND EBB IS GONE
Hit: 1 Stars
Sometimes putting on a Broadway musical can be murder. And the team of Kander and Ebb should know. Their latest, Curtains, is about--you guessed it!--murder . . . at a musical! The score and script have been shopped around for nearly a decade; although Ebb is dead, and the original author of the book, Peter Stone, has also joined that great chorus line in the sky, you can't keep a good show down. With apparently a great deal of help from the multi-talented Rupert Holmes, Curtains is enjoying an enormous success in New York. Starring a post-Frasier and newly-emerged-from-the closet David Hyde Pierce (it is a Broadway musical!) as a detective who moonlights as an amateur musical fanatic, it's all pretty light and fun. Initially conceived as a reasonably serious roman a clef with characters based on real show people, and layers of reality and illusion stripped away by the murderer, it has been dumbed down to a 1959 tryout at Boston's Colonial Theatre with lovey-dovey ballads, winsome love songs and rousing chorus numbers. The score is a valentine to old-fashioned musical comedies; the problem is that the writers have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations in making it a '50s musical--and, frankly, not a particularly memorable one. Karen Ziemba, Debra Monk and Hyde Pierce are kind of fun, but, the kind of musicals to which Curtains pays homage were kind of lame. If you're a fan of this rather bland Broadway musical sub-genre, go for it. But we draw the curtain on Curtains.