OCR Feature #2 - South Pacific 1950

South Pacific - 1950 - Best Musical - Rodgers & Hammerstein. Lone before R&H musicals were considered classics, I believe they revolutionized the Broadway musical with their writing of Oklahoma! As for South Pacific, it is groundbreaking not just for its beautiful score but because of its difficult subject matter. It dealt with war and its consequences, of love but also of racism. It’s leading lady Nellie Forbush played by the incredible Mary Martin had beautiful songs immortalized like Wash that Man and A Wonderful Guy but had to say lines that were dripping with racism. Ezio Pinza, an opera singer gets to sing Some Enchanted Evening with his strong baritone. Juanita Hall, an African American originated the role of Bloody Mary, a Tonkinese lady who engineered her way to make money from American Soldiers. She won a Tony Award for her role and got to sing the haunting Bali Hai. South Pacific is a musical that was filled with hit after hit song which became standards at that time. Listening to a song that talks about being taught to hate the people your relatives hate must have made such an impact even at that time. It’s amazing how R&H could write shows that seem on the surface about two intertwining love stories but delves into issues that are dark. It is one of the greatest musicals of the 1950s. #OCR #originalcastrecording #bestmusical #tonyaward #racism #rodgersandhammerstein #NYC #theater #southpacific





Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2022 at 11:26 PM

    How To Make Money Playing Baccarat - Wolverione
    How To Make Money Playing Baccarat. Betting is febcasino one of the most popular card games, but it is 바카라 사이트 a relatively new casino game. The casino games, like Blackjack, septcasino

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OCR Feature #1B KISS ME KATE 1999 REVIVAL

Image
Kiss Me Kate 1999 Broadway Revival recording for me is a definitive preservation of this classic. It gave us the lush brassy Kate of the wonderful Marin Mazzie and the baritone of baritones of Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell. The sound has changed from the old fashioned to one of modern Broadway. The tempo is faster and the dance numbers had an extra ounce of energy added to them. Marin Mazzie gave Kate a husky cabaret seductive layer especially in her rendition of So In Love. Stokes can sing the phone book and give us power but luckily he gets to use those pipes to sing Porter standards. This production I was fortunate to see with its original cast on Broadway. A near perfect revival directed by Michael Blakemore & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. It was a very athletic production with energetic dancers, new orchestrations and an indelible Michael Berresse scaling the set with acrobatic prowess as Bill Calhoun and a winning Amy Spanger as Lois Lane. Of course, that scor...
Read more

OCR Feature #1C Kiss me Kate 2019 Revival

Image
Finally, to wrap up our Kiss Me Kate feature, the most recent  @roundaboutnyc  Broadway revival was enjoyable and outstanding but that is if you have not seen the 1999 revival. On its own, it’s not an improvement to what was done in the past and because of the prevalent  #metoo  era of the new century, the material in my opinion, suffered rewrites that I feel was unnecessary given that this was a tale of the taming of the shrew. Changing its intentions and attack lost its original essence. However, it caters to a whole new generation. The change of the finale to I’m ashamed that “people” are so simple did not have the same effect. However, anything that showcases the glorious soprano of  @kelliohara  and a role on Broadway for Will Chase is always  welcome.  #kissmekate  2019  #revival   #broadway   #NYC   #musical   #OCR   #originalcastrecording   #musicalcomedy   #musicaltheater ...
Read more