969 stories by "Michael Portantiere"
Original London Cast, 1929 (Columbia/Pearl) With wonderful music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, this frippery about New Orleans, the French Revolution, and love leveling…
Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (RCA) Although rarely revived today, New Girl in Town ran for a respectable 431 performances on Broadway, and this adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie s…
Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (Warner Bros./DRG) If you want to know what killed the traditional Broadway revue, this cast album provides two answers: economics and a bankruptcy of imaginatio…
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (RCA/Arkiv) While it didn't create as big a sensation as New Faces of 1952, this revue boasted another impressive roster of performers. Front and center is T…
Original Broadway Cast, 1952 (RCA/Jasmine) Broadway once thrived on clever little revues in which clever young people satirized whatever was topical along the Great White Way and in the news…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (RCA) Those who find much of William Finn's work too abrasive should check out this moving and original musical about serious illness. In collaboration with …
Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (ColumbialDRG) This investigation of beatnik culture ran for only 23 performances, and you'll know why when you hear the cast album. With a jazz quartet instead …
Original Los Angeles Cast, 1998 (Cafe Pacific) Obviously, the cast album can't capture the raison d'être of this popular revue. Yet it does help make conceiver-director Robert Schrock's c…
Studio Cast, 1999 (Nonesuch) Composer-lyricist Adam Guettel's song cycle Saturn Returns had a brief run at The Public Theater but never got an original cast album. Myths and Hymns comes pret…
Original Cast, 1986 (Polydor/Varèse Sarabande/Verve) Composer-lyricist-Iibrettist Rupert Holmes folded a tribute to the English music hall into his adaptation of Charles Dickens' unfinished…
Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (Atlantic) This "new" musical was written around old George and Ira Gershwin songs. During its troubled pre-Broadway tryout, book writer Peter Stone and the uncr…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (PS Classics) With a book and lyrics by Richard Nelson, who also directed the show, My Life With Albertine has a powerful and distinctive score; composer Ric…
Original Broadway Cast, 1992 (RCA) No two Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens scores sound remotely alike. Here, the flavor is bright, clever, and wonderfully varied. In adapting the popular film M…
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Columbia/Sony) My Fair Lady is still regarded by many as the supreme achievement of the American musical theater, and the original performances of Rex Harrison …
Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (Capitol) This is one of the greatest of all cast albums. Meredith Willson, in his first Broadway effort, wrote the colorful, varied music and lyrics. The score …
Radio Broadcast, 1952 (AEI) If Music in the Air sounds like the title of a hokey operetta, that's intentional; the 1932 show, with music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein,…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2004 (JAY) This is Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart's attempt to parody hit musicals by taking one melodramatic story (a landlord trying to secure rent money from …
Original Broadway Cast, 1980 (Original Cast Records/no CD) No stars; not recommended. After only 14 performances, Musical Chairs vanished from sight, but the show yielded a cast album. The e…
Original Broadway Cast, 2002 (Sony) In the old days, composers hoped that theatergoers would go out humming what they'd just heard. With shows like Movin' Out, however, the idea is that the …
In theatrical comedy, drama, and even tragedy, an entire play can revolve around or turn upon the smallest of plot points.
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Columbia/Sony, 2CDs) When Frank Loesser's adaptation of Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted opened on Broadway, the composer-lyricist quickly corrected t…
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Decca/MCA) From the moment the overture fires up, strings sawing away and trumpets blaring, you know that this is a mid-'50s schlock musical comedy. Produced (b…
Original Broadway Cast, 1962 (Columbia/Sony) Irving Berlin's final show should have been a natural. It's a look at a JFK-like First Family, with mild social satire and plenty of flag-waving.…
Original Broadway Cast, 1954 (RCA/Stage Door) Is it a musical, or a straight play with incidental songs? Mrs. Patterson was a hybrid oddity of the 1954-55 Broadway season. Having seen Eartha…
Studio Cast, 2002 (DRG) A planned 2001 production of Jerry Herman's Miss Spectacular in Las Vegas never materialized, but this concept recording is a doozy, featuring the kind of cast that a…
