The golden age of the Broadway musical may be long past, but never has the musical been so gloriously recorded as in the present. Those who only know and treasure the familiar original cast recordings of shows like Brigadoon , Oklahoma , and West Side Story have a great treat in store. Quietly, over the past decade, most of these shows have been re-recorded in versions that often match or surpass their originals. At the top of the list stands a recent recording of The King and I with Julie Andrews and Ben Kingsley.
Nothing here disappoints.
Her rendition of Hello Young Lovers is a master class in diction and characterization. Ben Kingsley actually succeeds in effacing the memories of Yul Brenner, and the conducting of John Mauceri, as in The March of the Siamese Children , reminds us that Richard Rodgers was a melodic genius. Singers like Brent Barrett, Rebecca Luker, Judy Kaye, and John Mark Ainsley are not household words, but they stir you to the quick in the way Drake, MacRae, Merman, and Martin did a generation ago. Listening to Ainsley s Come to Me, Bend to Me will leave you shaking your head that such a marvelous song was left out of the MGM movie with Gene Kelly. Kim Criswell is the belter par excellence of our day, and she stars in the new versions of Cole Porter s Kiss Me, Kate and Irving Berlin s Annie Get Your Gun .