969 stories by "Michael Portantiere"
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (First Night) The talented team of librettist-lyricist John Dempsey and composer Dana P. Rowe mined the familiar terrain of Little Shop/Rocky Horror teen-nos…
Encores! Concert Cast, 1999 (Decca) You can always tell an overture arranged and orchestrated by Hans Spialek: The brass section announces something important, the woodwinds flutter and swoo…
Original Cast, 1919-20 (Smithsonian/no CD) By the time of its 13th edition, Ziegfeld's legendary beauty-and-music revue was a Broadway institution. Some historians hold that this 1919 versio…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (PS Classics) Like the show itself, the cast recording of composer-lyricist Tim Acito's "musical fairy tale" Zanna, Don't! will probably appeal mainly to tee…
Original Broadway Cast, 1981 (Arista/Masterworks Broadway) This is a musicalized update of the famous Hepburn-Tracy movie of the same title, with the plot changed so that it now concerns a t…
Film Soundtrack, 1939 (MGM/Rhino-Turner) Is it an overstatement to call MGM's The Wizard of Oz the world's most beloved film? Happily, a superb job has been done with the latest edition of t…
Studio Recordings, Piano Rolls, Music-Box Discs, 1903-08 (Hungry Tiger Press, 2CDs) Shortly after L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a stage musical version became the bigge…
Original Broadway Cast, 1975 (Atlantic) L. Frank Baum hit theatrical pay dirt with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Two years after the novel's publication in 1900, Baum and partners launched a m…
Original Broadway Cast, 1952 (RCA) Eddie Fisher's mega-hit recording of the title tune helped turn this Catskills summer romance, based on Arthur Kober's play Having Wonderful Time, from an …
Original Cast Members, 1995 (RCA) Composer Jeffrey Lunden and lyricist-librettist Arthur Perlman deserve credit for tackling such difficult source material: Arthur Kopit's acclaimed play Win…
Original London Cast, 1982 (EMI/Ange1) Much of Tony Macaulay's music is too pop-rocky for an adaptation of the classic 1920s Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur comedy The Front Page, but Macaulay a…
Original Broadway Cast, 1991 (Sony) Chameleonic composer Cy Coleman and stalwart Broadway lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the songs for The Will Rogers Follies, a fanciful musi…
Original Broadway Cast, 1955 (RCA) Cole Porter's last Broadway show is a charming and sophisticated musical based on the Greta Garbo film Ninotcka. Only Porter could have given that heady ci…
Original Broadway Cast, 1997 (Sony) Based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, twins who were born joined at the hip and who had minor show business careers that exploited their oddity, …
Original London/Broadway Cast, 1976 (RCA) When Side by Side by Sondheim opened in London, it was warmly received, as half of Sondheim's shows had not yet been seen in the West End. In New Yo…
Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (Roulette/no CD) Carol Channing spent many years between Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly! touring in a successful nightclub act that was gussied up for…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2000 (RCA) This was the first of the entries in the 2000 competition between two stage musical adaptations of Joseph Moncure March's epic poem. Although Andrew Li…
Original Broadway Cast, 2000 (Decca) Composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa was not unknown when The Wild Party, his adaptation of Joseph Moncure March's 1928 poem of the same title, hit Br…
Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (RCA) Why did the star of Wildcat choose to make her Broadway debut in a show with requirements so far afield from her abilities? Lucille Ball had looks and char…
Original Broadway Cast, 2003 (Decca) Don't go to this recording for a perfectly accurate representation of what's heard in the theater; the songs were somewhat edited for the cast album to r…
Original Broadway Cast, 1958 (MGM/Polydor) With music by Moose Charlap and lyrics by Norman Gimbel, Whoop-Up was a quick failure set in a Montana bar ("where you don't have to wear a tie to …
Studio Cast, 1998 (Deutsche Grammophon) The recording of a previously unrecorded musical theater score is usually a cause for celebration, but A White House Cantata is a maddening misfire. T…
Studio Cast, 1998 (Polydor) Labeled Songs from Whistle Down the Wind, this collection of 12 numbers performed by a lineup of pop stars is easier to take than the subsequent London stage cast…
Original London Cast, 1958 (Columbia/Angel) Based on Charley's Aunt, the reliable old farce by Brandon Thomas, Where's Charley? was a big hit on Broadway in 1948 with Ray Bolger in the lead.…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1997 (RCA) The second of two revues that showcased the talents of outré costume designer Howard Crabtree was an evening of bright, largely gay humor. Though seve…
