Five Enchanted Evenings (and Three Matinees) With William Michals

When the features editor of Opera News praises an opera singer in his monthly column, that's great; but when he goes out of his way to single out someone whose "fach" is musical theater, that's a very special compliment. In the October 2007 issue of the magazine, Brian Kellow wrote of William Michals' performance in a Town Hall concert titled A Night at the Operetta that the baritone was "nothing short of splendid in 'Indian Love Call' (solidly partnered by Rebecca Eichenberger) and in his solo, Song of Norway's 'Strange Music.'"

Michals made his Broadway debut in Beauty and the Beast as the Beast, later returning to the show to play Gaston. He has also starred in major productions of Les Miz, Man of La Mancha,The Scarlet Pimpernel, Chicago, and The Music Man. Now he's covering the role of Emile De Becque in the gorgeous revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific that's consistently selling out at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. And here's a heads-up, people: Michals will be going on in the part from September 9 through 14, during star Paulo Szot's week off. I recently spoke with him about this golden opportunity.

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BROADWAYSTARS: For someone with a voice like yours, Emile De Becque must be a dream role. Have you gone on yet?

WILLIAM MICHALS: Yes. I went on for two performances about a week after the Tonys, and then two more times in August. I was talking with someone in the cast yesterday and saying how much I'm looking forward to doing a full week as Emile.

STARS: Here's something I think you'll be happy to hear, if you don't already know it: A friend of mine who works in the box office at the Beaumont says that the show is completely sold out, even during the scheduled vacations for Paulo and Kelli O'Hara.

WM: Yes! I was told by the house manager that about a dozen people per night turned in their tickets the first night Paulo didn't go on, but those tickets were snapped right up by people waiting in line for cancellations.

STARS: I wanted to talk to you about how the general public today responds to "legit" voices. It seems like so many of the quasi-operatic singers who become popular, like Andrea Bocelli or Charlotte Church or even Sarah Brightman, have some sort of gimmick. Thoughts?

WM: Well, whether or not you like Sarah Brightman, she did and does work very hard at her art. A lot of people love her, and you can't take that away from her. There's another ilk of performers like Josh Groban; they aren't true opera or classical singers, but they tend to be classified that way. I'd like to be thought of as a singer who can encompass a certain spectrum of musical styles -- though I don't think anyone will ever hear me doing hip-hop or R&B.

STARS: So, when you hear the term "legit voice," what does that mean to you?

WM: If it simply means a singer who has had a certain amount of classical training and can bring that training to more modern music, then that would be people like me. Of course, there's a danger in sounding too operatic when you sing musical theater songs, because it can be detrimental to the material. Musical theater is primarily about the words, the communication of ideas and emotions. It's not as much about the sound of the voice, as opera is. I think the main goal is to communicate with the audience as best as possible.

STARS: One might think that singers with your type of voice would find it difficult to make a career in musical theater today, since so much of the music is pop/rock in style, but you seem to have done very well in shows like Les Miz, Beauty and the Beast, and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

WM: It's true that few shows specifically ask for an opera-type voice. Not every show is right for me -- but, on the other hand, not every show is appropriate for an Idina Menzel. It really depends on the specific score, the interpretation, and the production. It can be argued that you need an operatic voice for Sweeney Todd, but Michael Cerveris has never been called an opera singer.

STARS: I guess it goes without saying that the level of amplification employed on Broadway nowadays has also had a big effect on how voices are perceived..

WM: Yes. It should be noted that, in this production of South Pacific, you don't have the same sense of amplification that you have in other Broadway shows. The sound designer has been extremely effective at creating a design that makes the show sound like it's not miked at all, even though it is.

STARS: What's it like to be part of a show that's such a smash, it's almost impossible to get a ticket?

WM: It's a blessing in every sense of the word. Bartlett Sher's vision of the piece is what has made it such a success and made it connect so well with the audience. It's a joy to hear that music every night. I'm amazed how the people in the cast are constantly humming the melodies from the score offstage. In other shows that will remain nameless, that doesn't happen. The music is just great, from the first bar of the overture -- with that timeless melody of "Bali H'ai" -- right to the end. It's mesmerizing.

STARS: Were you familiar with the various recordings of South Pacific before you were cast in the show?

WM: I first played Emile De Becque when I was 16, at a community theater, and I was definitely brought up on opera and musicals. So I was very familiar with Ezio Pinza's performance on the original cast album.

STARS: Has Emile's French accent been a challenge for you?

WM: Well, I've had dialect training. And it's very strange, but my career seems to have focused on French characters: Javert in Les Miz, Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lancelot in Camelot. Gaston in Beauty and the Beast is certainly French -- and the Beast theoretically is, too. So the dialect comes pretty easily for me, but it still takes attention and focus.

STARS: When you launch into "Some Enchanted Evening" in South Pacific, what reaction do you sense from the audience?

WM: The song is a masterpiece. It's high art on the level of a Schubert lied or an operatic aria. I can attest to the fact that, as soon as I open my mouth and sing the first three words of the song, you can almost feel the audience gasp. They're deeply touched by the melody, the words, and also by some visceral familiarity that we all have with this music. That's very gratifying.

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[For much more on William Michals, visit his website: www.williammichals.com]

MARY MARTIN IS DOLLY GALLAGHER LEVI!

"Why did it take so long for the Mary Martin Hello, Dolly! to come out on CD?", a colleague of mine recently asked via email. Now that the recording in question has been issued and distributed on CD by ArkivMusic, you can have a listen and decide for yourself whether or not there were good reasons for the belatedness of the transfer.

The history of Dolly! recordings is unusual. In the mid-1960s, three different cast albums of Jerry Herman's wonderful score were released on LP by RCA Victor within three years of each other: the original Broadway cast recording, starring Carol Channing ('64); the London cast recording, starring Martin ('65); and the recording of the revamped, all-black Broadway production that was headlined by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway ('67). The Channing album has always been and presumably always will be readily available, while the Bailey is currently out of print but did make it to CD. The Martin album has been out of print for nearly 40 years.

Well, that's not entirely true: Two of Martin's Dolly! numbers, "I Put My Hand In" and "So Long, Dearie," are included as bonus items on the most recent CD edition of the Channing recording. Other bonuses to be found there are two tracks from the Bailey recording and, most interesting of all, Ethel Merman's recordings of the two songs that were added to the Broadway Dolly! when she took over the title role in 1970 and finished out the show's seven-year run: "Love, Look in My Window" and "World, Take Me Back."

Following RCA's three recordings, the Dolly! score turned up again via the soundtrack of the film version, which starred the super-talented but miscast Barbra Streisand, and an unfortunate 1994 revival cast album with Channing back in the lead, then at a far-too-advanced age. My personal favorite of all the recordings is Bailey-Calloway, but I'm thrilled that my CD library now also includes the Mary Martin version, despite its significant flaws.

Martin played Mrs. Levi in London immediately after starring in a tour of Dolly! that visited several U.S. cities, plus Toronto, and then made stops in Japan, Viet Nam, Okinawa, and Korea. Appparently, that company traveled intact to London and performed the show there at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, later to be replaced by an all-British company headed by Dora Bryan. (This probably explains why the Martin recording is rather oddly billed as featuring the "Original Drury Lane Cast.")

Certainly, Martin's fabled charm comes through on the recording -- as when, in the opening number, her Dolly matter-of-factly explains that "Some people, paint, some sew...I meddle!" (If you'd like to see as well as hear Martin in this plum role, check out the excellent PBS documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman for some brief but tantalizing clips of her in action.)

As for the star's singing voice, it was still in good condition in the mid '60s, with only some strain at the top of her range reflecting her age. To be honest, a few of her high notes are embarrassing and may partly account for this album having been so quickly deleted from the catalogue; among the moments in question are her ill-advised attempt at wailing towards the end of the title song and her coarse belting/shouting of "All aboard!" in "Put On Your Sunday Clothes." Otherwise, she sounds warm, expressive, and delightful as ever, even if one wishes that the keys of her songs had been lowered just a little bit.

There's one major disappointment among the supporting cast: Garrett Lewis, whom you may remember for his singing and dancing as Jack Buchanan in the film Star!, really doesn't have the vocal chops for the role of Cornelius Hackl. 'Tis pity, as he gets to sing lead in the pulse-raising production number "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" and the touching ballad "It Only Takes a Moment" -- both of which were used to great effect in the movie Wall-E.

Loring Smith, who had played Horace Vandergelder opposite Martin on the aforementioned tours before repeating the role in London, does a fine job with "It Takes a Woman" and the end-of-show reprise of the title song. Johnny Beecher and the adorably named Coco Ramirez make the most of their brief vocal moments as Barnaby Tucker and Minnie Fay. The most pleasant surprise of the recording is the beautifully sung Irene Molloy of Marilynn Lovell, who later married and performed with the super-talented music man Peter Matz.

The orchestra -- conducted by Alyn Ainsworth -- plays the score to the hilt, and the chorus sings lustily. The sound quality of the recording is slightly over-reverberant but not in an unpleasant way.

As fate would have it, Mary Martin's Dolly! has finally made it to CD at a point in time when that particular medium for sound recording and dissemination is headed the way of the mastodon. If you've already abandoned the format, I'm sure you can download these tracks; but as for me, I'll repeat that I'm glad to have the album join my CD collection.

LESS -- AND MUCH MORE -- OF LIZA

Boasting of having recently lost 45 pounds, Liza Minnelli looked "terrific!" in the concert she gave in Coney Island's Seaside Park last Thursday, with Christopher Cross (of "Arthur's Theme" fame) as her opening act. Although she was jet lagged and seemed to be in pain of some sort, Liza also sounded great -- better, in fact, than I've heard on any occasion during the past 15 years or so. Lovingly supported by musical director Billy Stritch and a 12-piece band, she wowed the fan-filled crowd with "My Own Best Friend," "Cabaret, "Maybe This Time," "Ring Them Bells," "New York, New York," and other selections from her stack of hits, plus "Teach Me Tonight," "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?", "My Ship / The Man I Love," and several more gems. Here are a few photos of the indomitable Miss M. doing her amazing stuff.

YOU ARE THERE!

I still haven't quite made peace with the fact that no audio/visual documentation exists of most of the great theatrical performances of the 20th century, even though the technology was certainly there to capture them.

Beginning in the mid 1970s, the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts began to fill this gaping hole in our cultural record; and now, of course, video clips of just about every Broadway show are recorded by audience members via cell phones or mini camcorders and are often posted on YouTube. But the vast majority of 19th and 20th-century theater has been visually preserved only through still photographs, some 200 of which have been collected and published in Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater 1850-1970 (Turner), with text and captions by Leonard Jacobs.

This fabulous new hardcover book consists of photos and other images from the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the aforementioned NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Among the many treasures: an amazing photo from Billy Rose's Jumbo, the fabled 1935 spectacular that played at the no-longer-extant, 5,000-seat Hippodrome on Sixth Avenue (pp. 175-176); an interior shot of the Morosco, one of several theaters that were unnecessarily razed in order that the Marriott Marquis hotel might be erected (p. 111); and a rare photo from Porgy (1927), the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward play that was later adapted as the immortal Gershwin folk opera Porgy and Bess (p. 145).

You say you want more? Go ahead and flip to pp. 132-133 for an adorable group shot from the 1925 production of No, No, Nanette; page 183 for the wedding scene from Our Town (1938); and page 204 for a Carousel photo that features both the original Billy Bigelow, John Raitt, and his understudy/replacement, Howard Keel.

There are some omissions and mistakes in Jacobs' text. The people depicted in a few of the photos, such as those of Charley's Aunt (1892), Outward Bound (1923), and Of Thee I Sing (1931), are not identified clearly or at all. And there's an uncharacteristic grammatical error on page 96, in a paragraph about Alla Nazimova. But most of the text is very well written and bursting with delicious historical tidbits.

For anyone who has attended Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit performances in recent years, the most breathtaking image in the book is likely to be that of a young Doris Eaton, circa 1920 (page 105). The last surviving Ziegfeld girl, Eaton has strutted her stuff in several BC/EFA events over the past few years as she approached and then passed her 100th birthday. Her most recent appearance was this spring, at age 104! So it's a real treat to see her depicted here as a beautiful teenager. If there's one image that encapsulates what this invaluable book is all about, here it is.

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Is it too early to start thinking about what theater-themed wall calendar you're going to purchase for 2009? If your answer to this semi-rhetorical question is a resounding "no," I have two excellent suggestions for you. The first, On Broadway: Theater Posters From the Library of Congress, boasts full-color reproductions of 12 vintage Broadway show posters or window cards, one for each month of the year.

The company that produced the calendar, Pomegranate, was smart enough to draw us in with a cover image of the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany's, the legendary flop that closed during previews on Broadway in 1966. It's fun to view this brightly colored advertisement for the Bob Merrill-Abe Burrows musical, which starred Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain, and wonder what might have happened if producer David Merrick hadn't decided to put the show out of its misery before the critics were invited to weigh in. (Ironically, the poster bills Breakfast at Tiffany's as "Broadway's New Musical Smash.")

The choice of which poster images to include appears to have been quite random; there's a mixture of musicals and straight plays, hits (Oliver! and flops (Hallelujah, Baby!), new shows (A Raisin in the Sun) and revivals (Show Boat). If you ask me, the more arcane items -- such as the poster art for a 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie that starred Jo Van Fleet, Hal Holbrook, and Farley Granger -- are the most interesting.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Best of Broadway sports an awkward title, but this is a handsome calendar filled with full-color images of posters and sheet music from R&H musicals, plus set designs and black-and-white publicity photos. Of course, the team's five acknowledged classics are represented (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music). So are the less popular but still pretty wonderful Flower Drum Song, and R&H's forays into writing directly for film (State Fair) and television (Cinderella).

What's the gem of this calendar? That would be an image of the sheet music for the song "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" from a show titled Away We Go! -- which, of course, was retitled Oklahoma! before it opened on Broadway. We'll never know how much that change contributed toward the musical's phenomenal success, but it's a treat to view a rare image dating from the out-of-town tryout period, during which time one observer reported that R&H's first show as a team had "no girls, no gags, no chance."