977 stories by "Michael Portantiere"
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1997 (EMG) By the mid 1980s, plays about AIDS began to surface and continued to emerge thereafter, but with only a few musicals among them. Nevertheless, this one…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (Ghostlight) Although The Last 5 Years received mixed to negative reviews and closed quickly Off-Broadway in 2002, it has received many subsequent production…
Original Cast Recordings, 1941 (Platinum/Wave) Gertrude Lawrence had a reputation as a poor singer; Kurt Weill was quoted as saying that she had "the greatest range between C and C-sharp." P…
Original Broadway Cast Reconstruction, 1977 (Smithsonian/Hallmark) Here is one of the great artifacts of the American musical theater " and it's also a great listen. One of a series of Smith…
Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (RCA) Harvey Fierstein's book for this musical closely follows Jean Poiret's stage farce, the film version of which became a huge hit, about the chaos unleashed …
Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (Capitol/Angel) So, which Broadway composer stretched himself the most in writing a score that no one would have guessed he had in him? Jerry Herman with Dear Wo…
Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (Slider Music) Avrom Goldfadn's Yiddish farce The Two Kuni-Lemls is all but forgotten today. Even so, New York's Jewish Repertory Theatre (JRT) commissioned a musical…
Original Broadway Cast, 1938 (Joey/AEI) Boiled-down radio broadcasts of Broadway musicals were not unheard of in the 1930s, and the few that have been released commercially in subsequent dec…
Original Toronto/London/Broadway Cast, 1992 (First Night) Surely one of the most original and haunting musicals of the '90s, Kiss of the Spider Woman is also one of the strangest and most su…
Original Broadway Cast, 1948 (Columbia/Sony) Here is Cole Porter's greatest score " fresh, groundbreaking, and oh, so naughty. The show's book, by Bella and Sam Spewack, has a rousing backst…
Original Broadway Cast, 1953 (Columbia/Sony) Based on music by the Russian composer Alexander Borodin, this is the classic Arabian Nights musical. Starring the magnificent Alfred Drake as Ha…
Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (Original Cast Records) When the charming film King of Hearts, a cult hit of the 1970s, was adapted as a big Broadway musical, it curled up and died. Don Scardin…
Original Broadway Cast, 1951 (Decca) Although the quality of Gertrude Lawrence's singing as Anna Leonowens in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I was widely criticized, the effectivenes…
Studio Cast, 1998 (Original Cast Records) Kelly closed on its opening night, and this latter-day studio recording shows why it was one of the biggest flops of the 1960s. Eddie Lawrence's boo…
Broadway Cast, 1961 (Columbia/DRG) Some people may think of Robert Wright and George Forrest as mere "adapters" because the team famously took the works of classical composers and massaged t…
Original London Cast, 1998 (First Night/Relativity) The good thing about this cast album, recorded live at London's Vaudeville Theatre, is that it allows you to avoid the show's well-meaning…
Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (Colurnbia/Fynsworth Alley) For years, cast album collectors begged Columbia to issue this heartbreaker on CD. Finally, Fynsworth Alley got the rights and releas…
Film Soundtrack, 1962 (Columbia/Sony) In these days of multi-million-dollar Broadway mega-musicals, it's interesting to note that a 1935 show nearly created a scandal because it was budgeted…
Studio Cast, 1974 (MCA) In the early years of their partnership, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice were inspired by Biblical lore. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamco…
Studio Cast, 1955 (MGM-Heliodor/Polygram) Kurt Weill's first American musical, with lyrics by Paul Green, gets a thrillingly theatrical workout in this recording. Musical director Samuel Mat…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Varèse Sarabande/Fynsworth Alley) Talk about intimate: John & Jen is a three-character musical for two actors. Unfortunately, in its relentless focus o…
Original Broadway Cast, 1969 (RCA/no CD) This misbegotten musical biography of New York Mayor Jimmy Walker has three unsympathetic protagonists, a leading man who can barely hold a note, and…
Studio Cast, 1970 (Decca, 2CDs) This tour-de-force rock opera, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, presents Jesus Christ as a man at the center of a cult of celebrity while tracking the las…
Original Broadway Cast, 1984 (Polygram/JAY) When Jerry's Girls opened on Broadway in 1985, it starred Dorothy Loudon, Chita Rivera, and Leslie Uggams. No Broadway cast album was released. Bu…
Original Broadway Cast, 1989 (RCA, 2CDs) Lovers of Broadway dance music should snap up this cast album of the 1989 Tony-winning Best Musical, an assemblage of genius choreographer Jerome Rob…
