I had to triple check to make sure that I hadn’t already written about this album recently, as it’s easily a top 10 for me (I should actually make a list, as I find myself saying that a lot). The album is a studio (non-stage production) recording and it uses color-blind casting focused on opera heavy-hitters. Kiki Te Kanawa, of Maori decent, as Maria. Joel Carreras, of Spanish decent, as Tony. And Tatiana Troyanos, of German/Greek decent as Anita. Bernstein himself conducts this recording. And I believe this is the first (and only?) recording (of West Side Story) with Bernstein conducting. I could be mistaken. But with regard to the change in medium, Bernstein is no stranger to opera. In fact, he has written more opera/operettas than broadway musicals (I think?). Candide and Trouble in Tahiti are the first one’s to come to my mind.

The Dance at the Gym numbers remain timeless in their melodies and rhythm. Bernstein goes HAM on the Mambo and it’s hard to stay sitting in my chair at this coffee shop while listening. It is so high energy and emotional. You can feel bernstein’s energy and sweat dripping into the music itself. It’s a really great recording of the Dance.

The tracks America and Cool are highlights for me as well. In America, especially, Bernstein’s use of acoustic guitar and a diverse percussion and horn section brings this iconic Puerto Rican anthem to life in a very big and bright way.

West Side Story is likely Bernstein’s most famous piece of music. And as a huge fan of his opera/operetta work, as well as his symphonic/choral work, and his symphonic variations of the score of West Side Story, it is quite lovely to hear this score from a operatic perspective. Listening to this album reminds me how timeless the West Side Story score is. It sounds modern, bright, and relevant in any decade and in most forms of media (opera, broadway, film…) This recording was made 5 years prior to his death in 1990. It is such a blessing to have this recording and hear Bernstein’s interpretation of his own score 25+ years after the show opened.

Bernstein’s music will live on forever. I’m sure many would consider West Side Story to be his magnum opus. I won’t agree or disagree, but rather, acknowledge it’s outstanding timelessness and it’s ability to reach out to every type of audience and move them emotionally.

Okay wait! Before you dismiss a direct-to-video disney release, hear me out! Jeanine Tesori, composer of Fun Home / Shrek / Thouroughly Modern Millie / Caroline or Change, working with Lea Salonga(!), Judy Kuhn(!), and Hayley Westerna, with the moderate-to-high-quality disney production value. The album itself is okay, but it has 3 tracks that are worth listening to. These small gems are tucked away in the niche music catalog of direct-to-video film soundtracks. The lyrics are certainly indicative of a children’s film, but the melodies are complex, captivating and, at moments, soaringly beautiful. The music itself listens to like a broad, beautiful, landscape painting, with wide reaching musical architecture and smart and deliberate structure.

(1) Track #1 Lesson Number One. “Earth. Sky. Day. Night.” The intro draws you in fairly quickly and the first verse sets a pretty high bar in terms of captivating melodies. The architecture of the song is theatrical and keeps you on the edge of your listening seat. Structurally, there’s a high velocity feel moving toward the bridges and there are plenty of key changes to keep one engaged. The bridge and chorus meet the verses in quality level. The ending has a nice canon between the children and adults with equally nice harmonies sung by Salonga.

(2) Track #3 Like Other Girls.

This number is decent. There is some awkward and questionable asian-mocking-asian accents situation going on at one point, which serves as a distraction from the actual music, and dates this album quite a bit, but Judy Kuhn singing Jeanine Teori is worth listening to.

(3) Track #5 Here Beside Me

And then suddenly… an unexpected opera aria? Clear out of left field, classical crossover singer Hayley Westenra sings an intense, melodic, soaring-through-the-clouds, beautiful number. This song showcases Tesori’s ability to write music that hits the heart directly.

I wouldn’t consider this album to be essential in a collection. But for fans of Tesori’s work, fans of Disney productions, and/or fans of Salonga/Kuhn, this album, especially the latter of the songs listed above, is 100% worth listening to.

This is (one of) my mother’s favorite musical. Years ago, on her birthday, we were out for dinner as a family. There was a singer with a guitar providing entertainment and he was taking requests. My mom requested Falling Slowly but she couldn’t remember the title of the song, so she just said “that one song from Once.” Once, both the movie and the musical, flew over my radar whenever they came out. I had no idea what my mother was talking about, but to my surprise, and future delight, the singer knew the track she was talking about and performed a lovely rendition.

Falling Slowly needs absolutely no explanation. The song is breathtaking. In the Broadway recording, Cristin Milioti matches [the movie actresses name] in energy, and Steve Kazee takes a much softer approach to the role, compared to his movie counterpart. The guitar intro is replaced with a piano which removes any edge the song ever had to begin with. The result is an almost perfect duet between Kazee and Milioti, floating seamlessly through the air.

I don’t know you
but I want you
all the more for that
words fall through me
always fool me
and I can’t react

This album is a staple in anyone’s Broadway collection. One of the best (and one of my favorites) in the Actor-Musician genre. It was one of the first big non-Doyle Actor-Musician Broadway successes. Once deservingly won the 2012 Tony. I’m unsure as to why it was not eligable / did not get nominated for original Score, when Newsies, which is also from a movie, won. I’m not sure why Once wasn’t recognized for it’s score. It did, however, win 8 awards that year, including Orchestrations, Leading Actor, Book, and Sound Design.

Other album highlights include: Leave, Gold, The Hill, and When Your Mind’s Made Up. But the entire album drinks like a smooth glass of wine. Everything leads up to the finale: an acapella version of Gold that sends chills down any humans spine, followed by a reprise of Falling Slowly that tops the original movie and original non-reprise Broadway version. Nearing perfection, this album will pull at your heartstrings and increase your dopamine levels. This album has become one of my favorite OBCRs, and it gets better each additional time I hear it.

Since 2010, watching the roller coaster evolution of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s awkwardly conceived sequel to Phantom of the Opera has been… interesting. Book and Libretto aside, I think Love Never Dies is the best show one of the best shows, musically, that he’s written since 1993’s Aspects of Love. This album is a revised version of the 2011 Original Australian Cast, which was released only on DVD. This revised version includes various studio recordings that reflect changes made to the show over the last decade. The release year 2018 coincides with the first US national tour and the revisions in the recording are reflected in the US tour. To clarify the album year, most of the vocals were recorded in 2011 (identical to the Australian DVD) but 2018 more accurately reflects the present version of the score.

One of my favorite revisions is the 7/8 phrases added to Beauty Underneath. The melody alteration is haunting and very well-placed. You can compare the two versions below:

With all the changes made to the original London show, no one seems to be able to make logical sense of the Love Never Dies project. Other Webber musicals from the last quarter century, like Woman in White, Beautiful Game, Whistle Down the Wind, etc., have not been critically acclaimed, but Webber never put as much energy into revising them. There’s something about the Phantom franchise that Webber is absolutely obsessed with getting the audience on board with it. I will applaud Webber’s persistence. However, I don’t think any of the Love Never Dies productions were successful in linking the original plot of Phantom of the Opera, with the convoluted, sometimes boring, story of Love Never Dies. Raoul is a disgraced abusive husband with an absurd amount of gambling debt? Phantom got Christine pregnant? All of this unfolding with a circus-y, early 1900s Coney-Island freak-show backdrop? What?!

With regard to storyline, the entire show unfolds like a bizarre fever dream. But Webber has maintained his lush, orchestral, romantic melodies and there are some very beautiful moments in the show. The peacock feather explosion on the backdrop of the title track is one of my favorites. Seen here:

The song Love Never Dies has one of the best melodies in the show. When I saw the US tour with Meghan Picerno, this scene made me feel like I got my money’s worth. The scene is quite spectacular to see on stage. It’s possible… that I cried.

So long as I can suspend my belief and understanding of the original story, and accept this musical as a separate dimension, I can find many musical gems here and there throughout the show.

Even though Webber’s composition skills changed over time, it’s hard not to be impressed with his catalog of works. Andrew Lloyd Webber will always have a happy home in my heart. His more recent shows can be critiqued, but it’s a treat to have such a acclaimed and prolific musical composer with a career that spans over 50 years. Part of the joy of listening to ALW shows is hearing how his music has changed over time.

I will sign off on this post with another favorite of mine from the album. The quartet version of Devil Takes the Hindmost.

Before I begin my rant about Lionel Bart’s disturbingly beloved and oozingly british musical, I have to preface with a small complaint: The album cover. Ay yai yai. The tagline is “The Fabulous New [sic] OLIVEr! Cast Recording” with the word Live protruding in red from the text like the alien out of Sigourney Weaver’s stomach. It’s awkward to read and look at. The entire production logo is the 1994 London Production copy and pasted onto a cloudy, dark view of St Paul’s Cathedral. The spires of the cathedral are completely darkened against the sky, and with the upward straight on angle of the shot, and the it kind of just looks like the US capitol strange. Headlining puts Rowan Atkinson, Jodie Prenger (who?), and the 2009 London Cast, but not the kid playing the lead role, in oddly different font sizes, and it is obvious that someone spent less than 10 minutes making this.

Sorry about the rant, it was just really bugging me. As for the actual production, Rowan Atkinson is a cool choice for Fagin, and the role of Nancy is a winner of a UK reality show, okay, and the role of Oliver is rotated by three boys, with one, Laurence Jeffcoate, being recorded here.

I’ll start by saying that I don’t feel that this show, in general, has aged very well. Compared to other heavy hitters from 60 years ago, Sound of Music, West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, among others, Oliver has become more and more estranged from the modern human experience as the years have passed by. While the stories in Sound of Music, West Side Story are certainly set in a certain time, the stories of love and perseverance feel timeless in modern productions.

The story of a young orphan boy adopted by an crazy old man named Fagin who raises an platoon of orphaned boy pick pocketers seems… farfetched. Dickens’ original iteration of the story is now almost 200 years old, and makes more sense as social commentary considering London in the early 19th century. Nowadays, and on stage, Fagin’s creepy old man vibes are hard to avoid in this adaptation.

Overall it’s not a terrible recording. I think I prefer older recordings like the 61/62 Broadway/London recordings, or the motion picture soundtrack from 1968. But every once in a while I am in the mood for some Atkinson and listen to Reviewing the Situation.

And the award for the most ridiculous title of a musical ever: Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. The source material is Tolstoy’s War & Peace, and I actually thoroughly enjoy the name of the musical. But, oofta, it’s a mouthful 14 syllable title, however it is most definitely intriguing. Back in 2017 I wanted information, immediately, about this show solely based on this title.

By 2017, Dave Malloy, the composer/lyricist/writer of Natasha & Pierre, already had multiple off-Broadway musicals, including the original off-Broadway version of Natasha, on his resume. Malloy is a young composer who has decades ahead of him to create more, and I definitely look forward to what he has in store for us in post-covid Broadway.

Natasha has been described as an electropop opera by Malloy himself, but I feel that the acoustic and folk elements are not captured well enough in such a genre. It’s moot, but no matter what genre one prescribes, the score is unique and remarkably fresh. Malloy uses Russian folk music, classical, theatre, EDM, and pop to deliver a cast album that defies any traditional description.

Dissonance is prevalent in the score. At least, the dissonant moments are memorable to me, oftentimes in an uncomfortable way. Before listening to the entire score, by the middle of Act 1, I used to be put off by some musical moments, including the “Opera” scene. It wasn’t until more recently that I pushed through and gave the album a proper listen. I reached what is my personal favorite song Dust and Ashes, and I realized I should have listened to this album sooner. Malloy’s score is so interesting and well-constructed. Some emotional moments in the show have music that is so hair-raisingly perfect, and there is a really cool juxtaposition with the modern & classical elements.

The stage design, lighting, and choreography are top notch. The entire show is done in the round with dozens of audience members at tables that are directly on the stage. There is a bit of actor-musician approach to the orchestrations, as some characters play their own instruments accompaniment.

Natasha did not fare as well as projected at the 2017 Tony’s. Nominated for a whopping 12 awards, Natasha only picked up 2. It was beat out in most categories by Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away, the latter of which was snubbed of Best Musical in my humble opinion.

Highlights include: the Prologue and Dust and Ashes. Worth pointing out the incredible Stage design if you watch the Prologue cut.

A 2012 UK Tour Cast Recording was never released. Rightly so, but we’ll discuss that later. As such, I feel it’s a bit unfair for me to write about it. But! The production was released on DVD and written into the history books. The audio rip of this show is in my collection and from time to time, if I’m in the mood to laugh, I listen to a few tracks. This album has an it’s-so-bad-it’s-good quality to it. The orchestrations aren’t terrible, but the vocals are just such a let down for a production with such promotion, hype, and big-name headliners.

Lowlights Highlights Notable tracks include the opening Heaven on their Minds. The guitar intro starts and for a few seconds, this sounds like a pretty normal production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera with high production value. Tim Minchin sings the first verse with nothing unusual happening. But the second verse begins, and he is autotuned more and more as the track goes on. It ends with him exploding into a supernova of autotuned yell/belt/scream/singing. Atrocious. But do I love it? I’m not sure.

In What’s the Buzz, Melanie Chisholm, of Spice Girls fame, runs out of breath during her first verse. In the same verse, she stumbles over the rhythm/pitch and is autotuned accordingly. The duet with Minchin that leads into Strange Thing Mystifying is pretty awkward. Minchen holds the rhythm together and tries to coax Chisholm to hit the right beats, but to no avail.

Everything’s Alright lacks all emotional and complexities that were ever intended to exist in this song. This song is a Webber classic sung by one of the most iconic women in history (Mary Magdalene, not Chisholm) and is butchered by a singer who sounds like she is chain smoking between verses, gasping for air. Minchin jumps in with his verses and tries to overcompensate by growling some of his lines. But just a terrible recording of this song.

Simon Zealotes is not terrible. I’d have to rewatch it to see for certain, but it sounds like everyone is doing high intensity NSYNC POP dance moves for the entire track. Maybe the mics are too close to the mouth and everyone’s breaths are highlighted? Ben Forster’s rendition of Poor Jerusalem is not terrible, either. Forster attained the role by winning a UK talent search TV show.

And then, The Temple. What kind of crazy human would destroy the score to such a hauntingly beautiful song with such abominable instrumentation. The driving, pulsing, techno inspired beats that hit on every downbeat are maddening. It’s almost as if Forster decides to forget how to sing for both of his verses.

The Temple is about as far as I am capable of listening to this recording from front to back. Skipping around a bit I gather that there’s not much to look forward to to keep this ship afloat. King Herod’s song isn’t terrible, but doesn’t manage to make this production any more memorable.

I actually enjoy the orchestrations and choral parts of Act 2’s Could We Start Again Please, but the Spice Girl fails to redeem herself in this one. The only track I didn’t loathe was This Jesus Must Die. The cast director found men with a wide arrange of vocal ranges/talents to cover all the appropriate bases of this villainous song.

Overall, a terrible recording. Only long standing JCS fans and avid collectors should bother obtaining this. There are dozens (and dozens) of recordings of JCS I would recommended before this one.