Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers - South Pacific (Original 1949 Broadway Cast)
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Free Music Notes for South Pacific (Original 1949 Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: BRILLIANT!
Hit: 5 Stars
UNFORGETTABLE! Once heard - totally hooked! Another one of those guilty pleasures - and well-deserved!The album is perfect - a superb transfer from the originals to this medium. The Great EZIO PINZA still seduces with his unstoppable charm and magnificent voice - ditto Mary Martin as the 'innocent' abroad during those troubled times. [Nothing quite surpassed this original cast]. AND fortunately, not all of this is 'sugar and spice' after all - the musical {and subsequent movie version} was banned in various 'conservative' countries - [and still is cut and butchered abroad.]
Visit this recording often.
Free Music Review: 1949 on CD does not work
Hit: 3 Stars
Yes, it is great to have one of the greatest musical theater pieces preserved on CD with the original cast, but it is painful to listen to the lackluster quality of the recording. It would be better to listen to the original 78rpm recording. There is a wonderful 1967 Lincoln Center recording in the Columbia vaults with Florence Henderson and Georgio Tozzi. It is beautifully produced and performed. Lets go Sony Classical! We need to have this on cd now!Free Music Review: 1949 on CD works just fine!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
SOUTH PACIFIC is arguably Rodgers and Hammerstein's best musical. This 1949 original cast album has everything going for it. Mary Martin is Nellie Forbush, supported by Ezio Pinza, and a great cast. South Pacific was Rodgers and Hammerstein's third great Broadway hit, following Oklahoma (1943), and Carousel (1945). The pair had also done some Hollywood work with State Fair (1945, 20th Century Fox). South Pacific set the record for gross box office receipts, a record it held until My Fair Lady broke it.Although the album is in monaural (recorded in 1949; what do you expect?), the sound is very clear and does not distract from the listening experience. It's on the Columbia label, a major plus for cast recordings, as Columbia was the best in the business. The 1958 soundtrack is in stereo and is nice, but this is the DEFINITIVE South Pacific. Highly Recommended!
Free Music Review: AN ALL TIME GREAT!
Hit: 5 Stars
Certainly one of the few all time great scores for the musical theatre, SOUTH PACIFIC is very much alive and very, very well in this recording made over fifty years ago.Beginning with those first three majestic chords from "Bali Ha'i" through to all of the justly famous songs: "Some Enchanted Evening," "There Is Nothin' Like A Dame," "A Wonderful Guy," and "Younger Than Springtime" to the less famous but no less superb "Twin Soliloquies," "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught," and my personal favorite, "This Nearly Was Mine," everyone is a gem.
The cast is flawless: Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza lead a cast with no weak links. Interestingly enough, except for the opening song sung by two children and three songs in which the chorus sings, every one of the songs in this classic show is sung by the four principal players.
The sound is remarkable for being so "historic" and there are even four bonus tracks: Martin sings two songs cut from the show in tryouts, Pinza sings "Bali Ha'i" and there's even a ten minute "Symphonic Scenario for Concert Orchestra" taken from the themes of the score.
The accompanying booklet has interesting essays, a plot synopsis and several terrific photographs from the original Broadway production. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Free Music Review: One of the best cast recordings, one of the best scores
Hit: 5 Stars
So the show and its book might be a bit dated and as corny as Kansas in August by today's standards. The score is one of the most gorgeous, moving, and delightful Broadway has ever heard, and you need look no further than this wonderful original cast recording to see why (Although along with Mr. Andersen I must also recommend the movie soundtrack). Made when the show was fresh, new, exciting, and even a little controversial (For daring to include a song- "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught," obviously- that addressed racial prejudice), everybody's joy and excitement in performing this is obvious. Mary Martin makes a wonderful Nellie Forbush. Perhaps she was just a bit too old at 35 for the role, but she could certainly still get away with it onstage and projects so much youthful vitality, innocence, and spirit that that's easily forgiveable. "A Cockeyed Optimist," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Outta My Hair," "A Wonderful Guy," "Honey Bun" - all recieve what are almost certainly their definitive recordings here; Martin especially delights with the bawdy good time she has on the last song. (For a different side to her, buy the newly remastered Broadway Masterworks edition, not only for the superior sound quality but for bonus tracks of recordings Martin later made of "Loneliness of Evening" and "My Girl Back Home," both songs cut from the show - she gives very restrained but at the same time most beautiful and haunting readings of them) Former Metropolitan bass Ezio Pinza certainly had a powerful voice; perhaps in many ways it was no longer a very "good" voice, but anyone who can sing most of "Some Enchanted Evening" in a booming, romantic bass voice and then suddenly and cleanly switch to a serenly beautiful falsetto for the last line "Never let her go" is fine by me, and his "This Nearly Was Mine" is highly moving as well. THough Juanita Hall's voice is just a tad loud for a recording, (Which perhaps is part of the reason she was dubbed for the film version), her "Bali Ha'i" is haunting and beautiful and her "Happy Talk" delightful. And with "Younger Than Springtime," William Tabbert gives us some sense of why Mary Martin made a point of listening to this song every night from the wings - one of the best love songs ever written for the theatre and Tabbert doesn't dissapoint. And will there ever be a better chorus of Seabees in "Bloody Mary" and (especially) "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame?" While RObert Russell Bennett's orchestrations were highly improved upon by the glorious film arrangements, they still do a wonderful job, especially in the evocative "Bali Ha'i" notes that open the overture. One of Rodgers and Hammerstein's greatest scores is done brilliant justice in a "must-have" recording that is pretty much perfect from start to finish.