South Pacific is one of those musicals with a score so rich, so full of
emotion and so complete in its story telling that it can be presented
without sets or costumes and without a good deal of its book and still be
thrilling. This is clear from South Pacific in Concert a
one-night-only benefit concert that was captured on video and audio. This
audio CD features Reba McEntire fulfilling, if only in concert form, the
dream of many who saw her when she made her Broadway debut in Annie Get
Your Gun. "She'd make a perfect Nellie" so many of us said, and we were
right. Opposite her, the distinctive baritone
of Brian Stokes Mitchell is in full glory. While the cover gives third
billing to the nearly non-singing Alec Baldwin, the recording makes clear
the contributions of Lillias White as "Bloody Mary" and Jason Danieley as
the ill-fated "Crummy Lieutenant." The Orchestra of St. Luke's under
Paul Gemignani plays nearly flawlessly. With all that star power, it is the
score that shines through in a recording to treasure. |
Storyline: A concert presentation of the
score of the 1947 musical built from three
stories out of James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of tales
of life in the South Pacific theater of World War II. There’s the nurse from
Little Rock who falls for the French widower but can’t overcome her
prejudice when she finds out his late wife was Polynesian. There’s the
Lieutenant from Boston who loves but couldn’t think of marrying the daughter
of the Polynesian seller of trinkets and souvenirs. And then there is the
con-man from the Sea Bees.
Reba McEntire is superb with both the songs of the score
and the snippets of dialogue included in the recording. Her country-western
musical background and her natural southern accent feels just right for the
role of the nurse from Little Rock, and her sense of the meaning of each line
is rock solid. Mitchell's singing is everything you would expect and his
"This Nearly Was Mine" is splendid. His accent as the French born plantation
owner sounds at times a bit like he's doing the King of Siam rather than
Emile de Becque, but every time the music strikes up there is no way you
would want anyone else to be singing.
The fact that this is a live recording is not
hidden - there's applause at the end of each number. However, the quality of
the recording is a match for the finest studio jobs, especially in the
capturing of the orchestra's full width across the stereo space and full
range from deep strings to bright flute and from clean french horn to gentle
harp. Still, as a live one-take recording, there are a few moments that the
soloists might have wanted to take over. McEntire slips into a few too many
notes with her ah-shucks delivery and Danielley swallows one or two
transitions. He still makes both "Younger Than Springtime" and "You've Got
To Be Taught" as affecting as they were meant to be.
Just what is meant by the statement that the
recording uses the "newly restored original orchestrations" isn't clear, but
what is clear is that the orchestral sound of Robert Russell Bennett's work
is one of the crowning glories of the golden age of the Broadway musical.
This overture is one of those pieces of music that will survive the
centuries, carrying with it the message that the twentieth was capable of
greatness. In its six minutes it not only fully presents "Bali Ha'i" "There
is Nothin' Like a Dame," "Some Enchanted Evening" and "A Wonderful Guy," it
creates the sonic world of the show and previews the emotional arc of the
evening. It, along with My Fair Lady, Gypsy, Funny Girl
and perhaps Girl Crazy, make the case for the magic of musical
theater, and make the current trend toward overtureless shows all the more
dispiriting. Perhaps we shouldn't allow a show on a Broadway stage that
doesn't have a satisfying overture. (Which, of course, would keep
shows with scores too weak to overtureize off the boards.)
|
