970 stories by "Michael Portantiere"
Original Broadway Cast, 1955 (RCA) For many musical theater buffs, Damn Yankees defines 1950s Broadway style: all-American in subject matter aria treatment, songs by the hot new team of Rich…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1969 (Columbia/Sony) Jim Wise, George Haimsohn, and Robin Miller's ingenious salute to the Busby Berkeley movie musicals of the early '30s never hits a false note…
Original Broadway Cast, 1974 (A&M, 2LPs/Decca) This musical, based on Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, boasts a wonderful translation and adaptation by Anthony Burgess, whose exquisi…
Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Project 3) This was composer Mitch Leigh's follow-up to Man of La Mancha, and it was a long way from Spain to Brooklyn. The show was in trouble out of town " th…
Original Broadway Cast, 1992 (Angel) This is a faux revival cloned from the DNA of a vintage musical, with a score drawn from the Gershwin songbook. Ken Ludwig's book for Crazy for You is so…
Original Broadway Cast, 1938 (Musicraft/Pearl) The Cradle Will Rock, produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles, was created under the auspices of the WPA's Federal Theatre Proje…
Broadway Cast, 1943 (Decca) This Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart treasure was belatedly transferred to CD and is now available in beautifully restored, remarkably clear sound. The wonderful …
Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Columbia/Sony) A shocking musical when it first opened, and still an insightful if somewhat dyspeptic view of modern romantic relationships, Company explores th…
Original Broadway Cast, 1969 (ABC-Paramount/MCA) It's terrible, fascinating, and possibly the most unreviewable of all cast recordings. Alan Jay Lerner cooked up this musical bio of Coco Cha…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1989 (RCA, 2CDs) To one set of critics, this four-person revue of songs by composer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. was a long-overdue outpouring of …
Original Television Cast, 1957 (Columbia) In the age of television's big-cast, major-hoopla "spectaculars," one program stood out as a truly gala event: Rodgers and Harnmerstein's Cinderella…
Studio Cast Recordings from the 1960s (Angel) Chu Chin Chow was a huge success on the London stage, where it ran from 1916 to 1921. A Broadway production, which had a shorter run, opened in …
Original Broadway Cast, 1960 (Columbia/DRG) No stars; not recommended. Maureen O'Hara, in her only musical, is Christine FitzSimmons " an Irishwoman who journeys to India and falls in love w…
Original Broadway Cast, 1975 (Arista) Perhaps not fully appreciated during its initial run of only two years in the mid-1970s, the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Bob Fosse musical Chicago is now recog…
Original London Cast, 1991 (London) Because of its biblical subject matter and the sheer volume of music and lyrics that Stephen Schwartz wrote for the piece, including a large amount of cho…
Studio Cast, 1984 (RCA, 2CDs) Dramatically incoherent but musically brilliant, Chess concerns the fierce rivalry between an American chess champion (here sung by Murray Head) and his Russian…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (John Hammond Records/DRG) I find librettist Michael Colby to be extremely talented, with more natural gifts as a lyricist. (His shows are through-sung.)…
Original Broadway Cast, 1969 (Capitol/Angel) The hero and heroine are called Orphan and Angel. The villain is a bloated millionaire named Edgar Allen Rich. The production was designed to res…
Original Broadway Cast, 1945 (Decca) This landmark musical is not the most popular of the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon in terms of the number of productions, but it may well be the most bel…
Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (MGM/Polydor) Is there an odder Broadway musical than Carnival? Even with an all-American creative team, its sensibility " alternately sentimental, stark, and ra…
Original Broadway Cast, 1943 (Decca) It's easy to understand why Carmen Jones was such a hit on Broadway in 1943. Not only was it a novelty " an Americanized opera with an all-black cast " i…
Original Broadway Cast Members, 1980 (Original Cast Records) Picture Mamma Mia! leavened with wit, charm, and soaring melody, and you'll have some notion of this two-week 1979 flop. Both are…
Original London Cast, 1968 (Decca) No stars; not recommended. After a long period during which London produced few musicals of consequence, things picked up in the '60s. Some even called it …
Original Broadway Cast, 1946 (Decca) The well-produced CD transfer of recordings made by members of the original cast of Call Me Mister, featuring a rediscovered, extended version of compose…
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Columbia/Sony) This recording starts with the most exciting overture in Broadway history, and just keeps getting better after that. Leonard Bernstein's gilded s…
